Given the horrors and mass killings of Ukraine and Gaza, Nicaragua's perpetual repression of the rights of its citizens (even Pope Francis has had enough), plus so many other deadly conflicts across the globe, it comes as some relief that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has persuaded neighboring Somaliland to give his country access to the Gulf of Aden and thence to the Indian Ocean.
A memorandum of understanding (not yet a treaty or a binding agreement) signed in Addis Ababa this week between Abiy and Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi indicates that Somaliland will cede a 12-mile stretch of its coast, near Berbera, so that Ethiopia can create a harbor and a naval base for its national use.
This result is especially innovative because Ethiopia is the world's most populous (126 million people) nation without access to the sea. It lost its use of a port on the Red Sea when Eritrea broke away from Ethiopia in 1993 and treated its erstwhile partner with disdain and contempt. The two countries went to war from 1998-2000. Ever since, Ethiopia has had to truck and now rail its goods expensively into Djibouti, or to send them and receive imports by air. Abiy has regarded access to the sea as an "existential" requirement for Ethiopia's emergence as a global and African power.
The "understanding" is also very significant for Somaliland, an unrecognized "country" of 6 million Somali. Ever since its creation in 1991 as a breakaway region of Somalia — the war-torn, Islamist-riddled land along the south facing Indian Ocean coast — Somaliland has emerged as a well-run polity with better governance than its neighbors and, indeed, better governance machinery than most of the rest of Africa. Yet, despite its political success and its modest but promising economic achievements (especially in contrast to Somalia), no other nation has ever recognized Somaliland because Somalia considered it a wannabe secessionist entity and the African Union's loyalty to Somalia prevented recognition. This week, Somalia called the arrangements with Ethiopia "aggressive." The United States wanted to recognize Somaliland during the Obama administration, but the African Union got angry, just as Somalia reacted with enormous hostility to this week’s announcement.
No one wants to offend the sensibilities of the African Union, or even to make Somalia's standing in the world any less than it was before. But Somaliland has gone its own way, separate from Somalia, for thirty-plus years It has held a number of free and fair elections and, very much despite its failure be recognized officially as a "real" nation, has delivered estimable political goods to its citizens. Its GDP per capita of $681 is much higher than Somalia's $434 and ranks well among Africa's poor. It mines gemstones and likely has large supplies of discovered but not yet exploited petroleum deposits offshore. It also receives sizable remittances from Somali working in Europe or the Americas. Although not ranked by Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (because it doesn't officially exist), observers believe that it is far less corrupt than the African country average. Its several presidents have always worked on behalf of the public interest, rather than their own or their family's, even though Abdi's current reign is clouded by opposition protests and restrictions on media freedom.
One of Somaliland's advantages in comparison to Somalia is that the Islamist al-Shabaab insurgency movement has not managed to infect Somaliland. Whereas Somalia has been afflicted since 2006 with a fundamentalist battle between a now al-Qaeda backed insurgency, Somaliland has not been beset with that kind of combat; indeed, except for arguments with Puntland, its equally unrecognized eastern neighbor (technically another part of Somalia), Somaliland has existed largely without much internal hostility or controversy. Indeed, as argued last year in this space and much earlier in the New York Times and the Globe & Mail, Somaliland has long deserved to be recognized as a part of the African and the global world order. It does much more for its people than its near neighbors and much of the rest of Africa. It also belies the notion that Somalis are simply unable to govern themselves well.
Somaliland obviously gave Ethiopia access to the sea to bring in commerce and foreign exchange and boost its own national earnings. But it mostly did so because of the promise of recognition. Abiy was coy, however, implying that Ethiopia would recognize Somaliland "in time." That is hardly good enough, but Abiy likes to be cagy and probably wants to assess the flak that he will receive from Somalia (which promptly withdrew its ambassador), from the African Union, and from the European Union and the United States. Washington should welcome the move but will probably hold back, especially with so much else on its foreign policy agenda.
Ethiopia will benefit financially from its own harbor in Somaliland. Now it pays about $1.5 billion a year to transport imports and exports through Djibouti, a cash flow on which Djibouti depends. There is a new rail line from Addis Ababa to Djibouti; something similar will have to be constructed to Berbera, 572 miles away.
At home, too, Abiy has major problems. The Somaliland gambit may be meant to shift attention away from the Tigray region that his army (with Eritrean help) reduced to submission in 2021, and from the widespread starvation that now pervades Tigray (without relief from Addis Ababa). He also has to fend off attacks on his control of Tigray from Amhara vigilante militias who want to take control of western Tigray. He also faces irruptive attacks by the Oromo Liberation Front and army, a militant anti-Abiy force composed of members of his own ethnic group.
Abiy is refusing to negotiate with Egypt about the impact of his new Grand Renaissance Dam across the Blue Nile, a major supplier of downstream water and agricultural prosperity to Sudan and Egypt. The filling of the new lake behind the dam worries Egypt. Abiy says that there will be plenty of downflow; Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is skeptical, and periodically threatens war. He also supports Somalia against Somaliland.
If Ethiopia fully recognizes Somaliland that will be a positive outcome for Africa, showing that the accomplishments of a well-run country are acknowledged. Such recognition could also lead to other recognitions, and then permission to enter the world order -- all blessings for the people of Somaliland. Their coming in from the cold could also -- in the end -- benefit even Somalia by strengthening its ability to overcome al-Shabaab.
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