Somaliland: The Tragedy of Africa's Secret State

this video is brought to you by squarespace from  websites and online stores to marketing tools and   analytics squarespace is the all-in-one platform  to build a beautiful online presence and run your   business check out squarespace through the link  in the description below more on them in a bit what do you think of when you hear the name  somaliland we're guessing it's horror headlines   of civil war images of blackhawks crashing down  freaky high seas piracy and a feeling that here   is a country that you should never go to not  unless you want to start an exciting new life as a   professional hostage yet while this reaction is  common it's also wrong-headed somaliland you see   is no longer part of the failed state that is  somalia in 1991 at the height of the civil war   it broke off from its brother nation declaring  independence a government was established borders   a currency its own army by the early  2000s somaliland was more or less a   functional nation a safe semi-democratic twin to  somalia's dysfunctional carnage the only problem   no other nation on earth recognizes its existence  independent for 30 years somaliland still   officially remains part of somalia ignored  by the u.n the african union and the usa   even as it represents a path to stability for the  troubled region today geographics is investigating   a country that doesn't exist and how this  non-existence impacts its millions of citizens   a horn of africa along one of the busiest shipping  lanes in the world lies an invisible nation   bordered by djibouti in the northwest ethiopia  to the west and south and somalia to the east   somaliland is more than a mere geographical  curiosity at 176 120 square kilometers it's   larger than florida its estimated population of  4.5 million is comparable to that of oregon like   those states it has its own flag an anthem its own  police force unlike them it also issues its own   currency and passports and maintains a standing  army the government in the capital of hargesa   controls the nation's borders it has consulates  in washington dc and it plays host to official   missions from the uk uae turkey and more but while  only the weirdest of weirdos would try to claim   that florida doesn't exist the opposite is true of  somaliland gay crash the un and demand to see the   somaliland representative and you'll instead get  pointed to the guy from somalia ask a white house   press corps meeting for the president's position  on the nation and you'll probably be told that   he doesn't have one that's because somaliland is  a ghost state a place that doesn't legally exist   as far as the entire world is concerned it's part  of the gigantic basket case that is somalia on the   ground though the two couldn't look more different  for one somaliland is relatively stable there   have been no significant terrorist attacks since  2008. its waters are mostly untroubled by piracy   and the capital's crime rate is on par with most  american cities and that stability also carries   across to the nation's politics while somalia  last held a proper election back when elvis was   both still alive and under 200 pounds somaliland  regularly hosts democratic votes as recently   as 2021 a fair election for parliament saw the  incumbent government peacefully step aside after   losing power something that apparently not even  america is capable of these days another major   difference with somalia is the people who make up  its population while somalis and somalilanders are   ethnically similar their clan background is very  different in somaliland the dominant clan is the   culturally distinct isaac although there are  other clans it's the assad who make up most of   the population yet for all its success in not  being somalia somaliland is still a troubled   place most of its gdp of two billion dollars comes  from remittances sent back by citizens living and   working abroad in terms of riches it's the fourth  poorest nation on the planet yet it's not poverty   that really holds somaliland back that keeps aid  and international business away nope it's lack of   recognition states only become official when other  nations recognize them like a teenage geek at a   party somaliland has been consistently ignored by  everyone from pretty france to dweeby canada but   while being ghosted by your high school peers can  feel like a catastrophe on the global stage the   consequences really are catastrophic every  time somaliland asks for aid that aid gets   sent not to hargeta but to mogadishu where somali  politicians are all like send this to sevali lads   hard pass the government can't apply for  loans to improve infrastructure thanks   to state warnings foreign investment is almost  non-existent the reality for its citizens then   is that they're effectively ghosts unable  to travel on their passports ignored by the   wider world unable to access basic global  services and all of this raises a question   how did it happen how did somaliland  come to be so different to somalia and   why does no one important seem to care to  answer that question we're gonna have to dive   deep into the region's history a history built on  colonialism exploitation and unimaginable violence in the end it was the goats that did it well  more accurately it was the goats and great   power competition but for now we're just gonna go  ahead and blame the goats in 1839 see the british   empire had a problem how to feed the garrison  at its new coaling station in the port of aden   in modern-day yemen the solution established an  agreement with tribes across the gulf to supply   a regular stream of goats tribes living in what  is now known as somaliland although it was mutton   that kick-started britain's interest in somaliland  that interest quickly grew into something a little   more colonial pretty soon france and italy were  establishing their own coaling stations on the   coast triggering feelings of european rivalry but  since egypt had by now asserted a claim to the   somaliland coast there was little british could  do but grumble about it over a cup of tea until   that is a series of internal crises put egypt on  its own path to colonial domination and suddenly   london was able to make its move in 1888 scores  of new treaties were signed with the coastal   tribes officially creating the protectorate of  british somaliland from london's perspective   it was just in time just four years before france  had founded its own country of french somaliland   today djibouti a year after the british treaty  italy would in turn fused two protectorates into   italian somaliland the basis for modern-day  somalia it's here that we can see somaliland   really begin to diverge from somalia and not just  in the language of their new overlords for all   they had been quick to snatch up somaliland the  british were less like new colony and more like   oh man that's a lot of dust it's a lot of goats  london considered somaliland such a backwater that   aside from the vital ports pretty much the whole  thing was left to run itself according to the   old clan structures that were in place for  centuries when a religious rebellion broke out   in 1899 under the dervish leader maximum cabdule  xaxon the brits found themselves protecting even   less of the protectorate right up until zackson's  military defeat in 1920 and subsequent death from   spanish flu the colonial administration was  pretty much confined to the coast the italian   colonial project by contrast was far more hands-on  spared the headache of rebellion the italians were   able to impose a top-down structure on somalia  old clan politics were erased or sidelined a   process that only gathered steam after the first  fascist governor was appointed in 1923 by 1936   somalia was no longer even an independent colony  but rather a mere province of italian east africa   alongside eritrea and freshly annexed ethiopia  as we come to 1940 then somaliland and somalia   had been under separate administrations for over  50 years to just illustrate how long that is 50   years ago from our time nixon was heading for a  landslide re-election the vietnam war was raging   and nobody had any idea what a star wars was but  the two colonies would soon be joined by one of   the most disruptive events of all time world war  ii italy's declaration of war on britain in 1940   caught the empire on the back foot by august  somaliland had been annexed into italian east   africa but it wouldn't stay there for very long  the east african campaign of 1941 saw the allies   first major victory italy's empire crumbled in the  aftermath both somaliland and somalia were united   under british rule but this wouldn't be the end  of the two nations separate stories in many ways   this wartime forced union would just be the bloody  beginning now just before we continue with today's   video a quick word from our sponsor squarespace  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to make the transition smoother both nations were  given 10 years to prepare their somali colonies   for freedom in the end it was the british who  bowed out first but only just on the 26th of june   1960 london's rule over somaliland came to an end  to mark the occasion the royal highland fusilier   sent their pipers to the ceremony in her gaza to  play the new country's national anthem however   when they showed up it turned out that somaliland  didn't actually have an anthem so they were   instead forced to play a bunch of random tunes  and hope that nobody noticed while that detail   might seem trivial it does get to the heart of the  problems to come somaliland didn't have a national   anthem because it didn't need one although  the new state was recognized by 35 countries   including uncle sam everyone knew its time as a  separate political entity would be short-lived   the politics of the country were determined by  clan allegiances resulting in the somali national   league dominating the new legislature and what the  league wanted was to take their new nation into   union with its brother the day after the botched  ceremony in her gaza somaliland government voted   to join with somalia the law went into effect the  moment italy officially handed over power on july   the first after just five days as an independent  nation somaliland joined somalia as a single state   imaginatively named somalia as the guardian reilly  noted it is a decision somaliland has regretted   almost ever since the trouble was that somali  society then as now revolved tightly around clans   in somaliland the dominant clan were the isak who  along with the darrod highway and dear became one   of the four major clans of the somali state six if  you count two smaller clans now this was all fine   so long as everyone got along and those in power  didn't play favorites but if say some kind of   dictator were to rise up a dictator who preached  non-tribal politics while secretly favoring his   own clan well step forward that dictator major  general jali muhammad saad bah in 1969 baar then   commander of the army and a member of the darred  clan overthrew the government and seized power   he then ushered in a reign of what he called  scientific socialism but what was in reality   a mixture of ideas stolen from north korea and  china it was also liberally spiced with a lot of   good old-fashioned clan rivalry the privileging  of baar's clan spurred eye-watering levels of   resentment in a sark dominated somaliland but  since this was a dictatorship there wasn't really   much that people could do about it not while barr  was still perceived to be strong it was only when   the emperor revealed his new clothes in the hall  of somalia got a look at his shriveled flaccid   the trouble began in 1977 with hailey selassie  recently overthrown and ethiopia plunging into   chaos barr made the mistake of launching the  ogram war intended as a land grab it instead   triggered a major backlash as somalia's soviet  back as ditched by to instead support the more   geopolitically significant government in addis  ababa the result was a humiliation for barb one   that made him look weak a weakness that did not  go unnoticed by the victimized issac clan in 1981   sark dissidents living abroad in london  founded the somali national movement or snm   was the express goal of kicking bar out of  somaliland to everyone's surprise they would   succeed within 10 short years but only at the  cost of hundreds of thousands of issac lives the descent of somalia into clan warfare was  to somaliland what the breakup of yugoslavia   was to bosnia the starting gun on a marathon of  slaughter as the s m launched guerrilla operations   barr refused to negotiate instead he ramped up  the oppression declaring when i leave somalia   i will leave behind buildings but no people in  the case of smileyland he was sadly wrong in   only one respect he didn't leave behind any  buildings either after years of increasing   oppression in somaliland the civil war finally  exploded into overdrive in 1988 across two years   it's estimated that bars forces massacred 200 000  to sarc this included the standard grim list of   summary executions and attacks on civilians but  also some truly staggering military actions the   argesa holocaust was the carpet bombing of the  somaliland capital by fighter jets an operation   which saw 90 percent of the city reduced to  rubble and untold numbers killed today it's a grim   joke among huggies that theirs is one of the  only capitals to have been destroyed by planes   that took off from the same city but at the time  there was nothing even grimly funny about it the   annihilation was so complete that hagisa was  nicknamed africa's dresden after the german   city bar bombed in world war ii yet the terrors  inflicted on somaliland didn't stop there the   region's second largest city barao was likewise  obliterated out in the countryside people were   rounded up by the thousands shot and buried  in mass graves at least 200 of these pits have   been uncovered since the war's end but despite  his superior firepower and superior bloodlust   this wasn't a war bar could win after falling  out with the ussr bar had pulled the classic 20th   century tire and trick of relying on the united  states to prop up his regime as a bulwark against   communism now though uncle sam was starting to  get mighty uncomfortable about all these dead   civilians at the same time barr's actions were  emboldening other clan militias to rise up to   strike at a dictator now almost universally  despised with his support and power crumbling   there was no way the barr could hold on the somali  central government utterly collapsed in 1991 as   bar fled the country by then the various clans  and militias weren't just fighting the regime   but also one another locking the country into  an incredibly messy series of civil wars the   beginning of somalia's modern dysfunction but not  in somaliland as the whole of somalia plunged into   chaos the elders in somaliland called a grand shia  a meeting of all various clan and sub-clan leaders   to try and hammer out a peace deal this was only  possible thanks to the region's unique history   remember how the british had been so unwilling  to get properly involved in somaliland that they   left the old clan structures in place well  the payoff was that the people in 1991   still therefore had a lingering respect for  their elders they were still used to the system   of tribal politics so when the grand shear  issued a charter for stopping the violence   everyone just kind of put down their guns and  did as they were told but it wasn't just peace   that the grand shear was after on may 18 1991 a  proclamation was issued that was breathtaking in   its ambition somaliland would dissolve its union  with somalia with immediate effect from this point   on somaliland would be an independent republic it  was a game-changing moment in somaliland history   one that would put it on a far more stable far  safer path than its former sibling there was just   one teeny tiny issue how do you forge a successful  new state when no one believes that you exist if you were a bookie in 1991 the odds you'd have  given on somaliland succeeding would have been   somewhere up there with a garish blonde head new  york property tycoon one day becoming president   next to impossible no sooner was independent  settled than fighting broke out between some   sarc sub-clans a process made worse by everyone  being super heavily armed on top of that the s   m's gorillas were still the only law of the land a  land that wasn't even entirely within their grass   at independence somaliland only controlled about  60 percent of the territory that it laid claim to   within that 60 most infrastructure had been  destroyed the capital city bombed flat and   nearly everyone still alive was suffering some  next level ptsd oh and there was no money no   agreed political structure and in the san eg and  sewell regions in the east lived a bunch of tribes   who rejected independence and wanted to stay with  somalia but as that garish new york tycoon showed   sometimes the impossible happens in somaliland's  case the key dates were 1993 and 2002. in 1993 the   clan elders looked at the mess their nation  was still in went all like no that won't do   and called another conference there they drew up  a national charter for a sustainable political   system one with separate legislative executive and  judicial branches one with a bicameral legislature   including one elected house and one unelected  house of elders importantly the charter also   set out the establishment of a police force one  which would require all militia in the country to   voluntarily disarm and here's the thing they kind  of did the first president muhammad [ __ ] ibrahim   igal made it a point to mobilize all private  forces including the s m the end of armed groups   meant the end of the brewing into clan conflicts  but it also meant a chance to breathe to start   rebuilding the cities that were flattened in  the war still it would take nearly another 10   years before somaliland made its last great leap  towards stability in 2001 a referendum finally   approved the concept of multi-party democracy  even if the number of legal political parties   ultimately maxed out at three the first vote  was held in 2002 and to the world's amazement   it was mostly a success since that important  date multiple presidential and a couple of   parliamentary elections have taken place in  somaliland no mean feat when your neighbors are   authoritarian ethiopia even more authoritarian  djibouti and well somalia sure there have been   problems the 2011 parliamentary elections were  delayed by 10 years only taking place at last   in 2021 but with even just irregular peaceful  transfers of power somaliland is doing better   than many ever predicted and that's true in a lot  of ways from a bombed-out ruin somaliland cities   have risen again civil society as a whole works  private business has returned the education system   improved even the security situation  is light years ahead of its neighbor   while somalia proper suffers endless atrocities  somaliland hasn't seen a major terrorist attack   since 2008. even many european nations can't  say that given all that you might be wondering   why the world doesn't just accept this poor but  stable nation why the un doesn't just bring a   spare chair to its next meeting and ask the  somalilanders to break bread at their table   sadly the answers will leave you with little  hope for this invisible nation's future for all we've been trying to emphasize  that somaliland is something of a miracle   we'd be lying if we said it was perfect although  there is parliamentary democracy clan loyalties   mean that pretty much everyone in any important  position is from the assad clan and its subgroups   while analysts have credited this monoclan  culture with helping the country stay at peace   it has effectively excluded non-assad from  political life in the west the deer clan holds   some power but in the east it's a whole other  story egged on by puntland another part of somalia   that broke off and declared autonomy although  not full independence militias from the east and   darred subclans still reject haggis authority  but for all its political problems the real   reason somaliland's luck is unlikely to change  goes much deeper simply there's too many people   who want them to fail for the un usa and eu the  road map out of somalia's endless conflict is to   re-establish the state as a viable whole something  that would require somaliland coming back   under mogadishu's control meanwhile the major  continental player the african union has a   different set of worries ever since its days as  the forerunner organization of the african unity   the au's position has been that redrawing colonial  borders on the continent will only lead to chaos   and bloodshed by this logic recognizing somaliland  might encourage countless secessionist movements   leading to countless civil wars there's also the  grim facts of precedent the two most recent times   borders were allowed to be redrawn they resulted  in the mad dictatorship that is eritrea and the   basket case that is south sudan and finally the  somalia itself although effectively a failed   state somalia could still choose to negotiate  with somaliland on dissolving their union but   like an abusive partner mogadishu refuses to even  consider the idea of hakisa going off without them   of course somalilanders have answers to all of  this as government officials are fond of pointing   out they wouldn't be the first african nation to  end a voluntary union egypt and syria got divorced   in 1961 while senegal and the gambia spent most  of the 1980s in confederation before splitting on   the border issue too they argued that they don't  want to change colonial borders but revert to them   to make their nation as legally distinct from  their neighbor as british somaliland was from   italian somaliland while these are good arguments  though there haven't been enough to overcome the   global lack of interest as a poor nation with no  natural resources to exploit somaliland simply   isn't in anyone's radar there's no david  and goliath narrative that journalists can   hang on to as with taiwan and china no religious  flashpoint like the one that makes so many people   invested in israel and palestine nothing but dust  goats and millions of people desperately waiting   for the world to acknowledge their existence is  there a solution to somaliland's predicaments   we just don't know with so many vested interests  and so much international inertia it can be hard   to imagine things changing and yet there may be  a light at the end of the tunnel as more and more   decades slip by and somaliland remained stable  while somalia continues to you know beep somalia   foreign investors are gingerly starting to dip  their toes into the water in 2021 dubai's dp   world signed an agreement to invest heavily  in the port city of berbera including plans   to develop a special economic zone it's not much  but in a nation starved of any foreign investment   for three decades it represents something  important hope hope that in the near future   the world might finally start paying attention the  story of somaliland then may not be over it may be   that the next chapter is still being written the  one its citizens have prayed for for decades the   one telling the story of how finally at long last  the world came to recognize africa's invisible   nation so i really hope you found this video  interesting if you did please do use that thumbs   up button below don't forget to subscribe for more  videos like this one and thank you for watching

Channel: Geographics

Views: 565,900

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Id: lrM9XV_aFUA

Length: 25min 10sec (1510 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 15 2022