SOMALILAND: A Country Bullied out of its UN Membership By Ahmed Abdi Da’ar (daar@gmail.com)

SOMALILAND: A Country Bullied out of its UN Membership.

By Ahmed Abdi Da’ar (daar@gmail.com).

An open letter to UK Prime Minister, His Excellency Mr. David Cameroon Requesting the British Government of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II Take the Credit of Re-affirming the UN Membership of the Republic of Somaliland.

Prof Ahmed Abdi Da'ar

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

With all due respect, Sir, we request the Government of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, which you head, to vouch for the Republic of Somaliland, Somaliland for short, as a missing United Nations member state as one couldn’t be better informed on that matter than the British Government and the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) of which the UK IS a Permanent member..

We appeal to the Government of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the UNSC to change course; Let the Republic of Somaliland sit on its rightful seat in the UN General Assembly (UNGA) among the nations of the world to represent its people in the august chamber.

We appeal in particular to the Government of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the II, which you head, to get the credit of being the first to concede and to re-affirm the UN membership of the Republic of Somaliland, the Ex- Somaliland British Protectorate.

Presently, Somalilanders, the survivors of the heavy-handedness of Somalia, are the only people in the world who are represented in the United Nations by their arch enemy, Somalia.

Not even Palestinians are doomed to such a predicament. It is intolerably many times even more painful than adding insult to the injury.

Mr. Prime Minister, we are certain that you will agree with us that the Republic of Somaliland had already gotten its (1) full sovereignty, (2) self determination, (3) recognized independence and (4) UN membership like any other Ex-colonies which enjoy the above rights sitting on their UN seats while Somaliland is categorically denied to enjoy all of the above..

The Goebbels-scale propaganda that Somaliland lacks recognition and should fight for it, has thankfully consolidated a strong desire on the part of Somalilanders to salvage their country from going down the drain with Somalia, but needs to be reversed after long last with the assistance of the royal grace of the British Government.

Somaliland need not win again what it already has gotten. Somaliland does not lack recognition, it already has got it.

The onus is on the United Nations Security Council and its Secretariat to prove, if they could, that the Republic of Somaliland lacks recognition and is not a missing UNGA member.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the II has returned full sovereignty over Somaliland in 1960 to the Somali clans who had in the 19th century entered with the British crown treaties of protection by a royal decree and in good faith. Then the Harold Macmillan government of the period extended recognized independence to the Sovereign State of Somaliland. The then British government was also one of the UNSC Permanent 5 members (P5) which had witnessed Somaliland’s ascension to UN membership on 20th September 1960 as a constituent component of the [quasi-United] Somali Republic together with Somalia.

All and any subsequent UK governments are obliged to go by the former decisions of the Government of Her Majesty the Queen on Somaliland as indicated above..

After a long story spanning half a century, Somalilanders have not enjoyed representing themselves alone in the UN even for a single day due mainly to their self-inflicted demotion of their Sovereign Somaliland state a part of an illegitimate union with Ex-Italian Somalia against the good counsel of many local wise men and women and international traditional friends.

After long last and with lots of bruises, however, Somalilanders reclaimed their separate sovereign state, which didn’t need permission from Somalia to leave the union, on 18 May 1991 as the Republic of Somaliland in exact consistence with international law, i.e. before the imposition of Chapter VII of the UN Charter on Somalia as a failed state. An absentee but healthy UN member state described as a beacon of hope and as a rare democratic experiment need not be included by the UNSC as part of a failed state. A whole UN member state cannot simply be reduced to and counted as a region of another county by the UNSC. The UNSC Should be the first to protect the legality of member states, including Somaliland, not to be included in failed states and not to be kept outside. The UNSC should not tolerate to see the people of Somaliland represented in the UN by another antagonistic member stat, the failed state of Somalia,

A country which is not kind to its own children, won’t be any kinder than before to Somalilanders who had survived its genocide attempt on them..

The formerly un-ratified union between Somaliland and Somalia is legally dissolved and the failed state of Somalia should not be sitting in the UN representing, not only its self, but also the totally different, sound and peaceful absentee member state of the Republic of Somaliland..

It should be discontinued that Somalilanders are continued to be represented in the UN by the same Somalia which they had fought out from at a high cost.

It does not reflect well on the UNSC that a whole member state, the Republic of Somaliland, whose rights the UNSC is supposed to protect in the UN and its people, are represented there in the name of an already dissolved, non-existent union called ‘Somalia’ under which Somaliland is tucked. Somaliland has unilaterally, and legally so, abandoned its union with Somalia.

Somalia should be representing itself only in the UN. Who should be representing Somalilanders in the UN, their own government or Somalia which all the world knows Somaliland had legally rejected to be in union with? You realize, sir that Somaliland declined, too, to participate in the process of formation of a federal state for ‘Somalia’.

Somaliland is not and does not want to be in federation with Somalia.

Somaliland stood clear on its own and was so for the last 24 years, totally divorced from Somalia and the last thing in the world its people would agree to is to reduce their independent country to be made what they call ‘an autonomous region’ of Somalia.

Wouldn’t maintaining Somaliland in union with Somalia in the UN amount to bullying it back to a union its own people had chosen not to be part of since nearly quarter of a century ago?

The UN which is supposed to be neutral and impartial between member states has admitted back in Somalia, without telling it to get re-recognition from the African Union (AU) The same UN tells Somaliland, which is not a region seceding from Somalia, but an already existing UN Member state, to get re-recognition from the AU.

It must be inadmissible under UN rules and regulations that a member state which had withdrawn from a union with another in exact consistence with international law be kept away from the UN by others who have no more right to be UN members than it has.

Believe me, Sir, it has proven to be extremely tiring to be oriented to find what you already have got with you. We reckon it is time to call the Republic of Somaliland by its legal name and to announce its UN membership without a vote as automatically as is required by law. It is not permissible in the UN that one or more member states slam the door on the face of another member state returning legally to its unoccupied seat.

I hope, Sir, you will agree with us that the Republic of Somaliland is no lesser UN member state under international law than any of the rest of the UN General Assembly and Security Council members, including the P5. Somaliland is a missing UN member state and should be allowed to sit on its hitherto unoccupied UN seat.

The application of the late president of the Republic of Somaliland, Hon. Mohamed I. Egal to the former UN Secretary General, Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghalli to simply re-activate the former recognized Somaliland membership in the UN remains practically unanswered to date as Somaliland is not still re-admitted automatically to sit on its UN seat

As nothing is ever late, we are glad to send you this request as an open letter to your Excellency so that Her Majesty’s government becomes the first to concede and to re-affirm the UN membership of the Republic of Somaliland, which feels to be bullied out of its UN membership. The African Union (AU) will then remember that Somaliland was among its 32 sovereign makers as the Organization of African Union (OAU) in 1963 and will let it in, too..

Sir, we are waiting for your Excellency’s favorable reply at your earliest convenience.

Thank you,

Ahmed Abdi Da’ar ahmed.daar@gmail.com

Director Somaliland Peace and Development Consultancy, registered in London, UK

(Head of All Somaliland United Nations Membership Movement (ASLUNMM) program under formation)

25 March 2015, London, UK.