Sahrawi Arab Republic & Somaliland: The Struggle for Recognition

Policy Insights of South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA)

Somaliland and the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) are two African territories currently engaged in a struggle against the recognized state from which they are attempting to secede. They are also campaigning for recognition as independent states by the broader international community. The AU has been reluctant to shift its stance on not altering colonially inherited borders, despite successful examples of territories seceding to become independent states (Eritrea in 1991 and South Sudan in 2011). This policy insight considers the particular histories of Somaliland and the SADR to illustrate the complexities of their quest for recognition. It draws comparisons between these cases and that of Eritrea and South Sudan and makes suggestions for the way forward.

 

 

Commenting on the wave of democracy that swept sub-Saharan African states in the 1990s in the post-cold War environment, Chege wrote that ‘there is nothing remiss about altering state frontiers in the nobler interests of domestic tranquility and sustained economic growth, which are now so scarce in these lands’. Yet, changing colonial borders remains a hard-liner issue on which the AU is reluctant to budge. It is further complicated by the contradictory approach taken to secession, self-determination and the creation of new states. This is exemplified by the cases of Eritrea and South Sudan, which were allowed to secede, and that of Somaliland and the SADR, which are deeply engaged in a battle for international
recognition.

While self-determination was instrumental in the creation of Africa’s post-colonial independent states, the AU remains strongly opposed to secession. At the 1964 Cairo  Summit, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) – predecessor of the AU – declared the continent’s colonial borders inviolable, making these inherited boundaries ‘recognized international borders with international legal status’. Bereketeab argues that, because of this, ‘identity movements that aspired to secede from an existing state and form their own state were condemned, whatever the legitimacy of their demands’. However, the continent has had the smallest percentage of secessionist conflicts of any developing region globally since 1960. The strict adherence to inherited borders relates to what Ekeke and Lubisi call an ‘apprehension that the colonially produced African States would be plunged into internecine conflict if every group were allowed to secede

 

 

Yet, despite this hard stance against secession, two countries have seceded: Eritrea, in 1991, and South Sudan, in 2011. These states also became members of the UN and the AU. In the case of Eritrea, secession was allowed after a protracted military conflict resulting in victory for Eritrea and eventual permission from Ethiopia to secede. In the case of South Sudan, the AU itself declared its secession to be ‘an exceptional case’.  In contrast, the AU has taken a strong position against Somaliland’s independence, but gave the SADR differential treatment, as its AU-membership illustrates.

Notes on self-determination and secession

Self-determination is, according to Bereketeab, ‘intricately connected to the right of state formation’ and should be differentiated from secession. Whereas self-determination is linked with state formation, secession can be described as ‘political withdrawal from an established state. Secession generally suggests ‘territorial disintegration through severance of part of an existing state territory.

Self-determination is recognized by the UN in several of its key documents. The UN Charter
of 1945 mentions the territorial integrity and independence of states in Article 2(4). It states,
‘All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force
against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.’  The 1960 Declaration
on Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples (General Assembly
Resolution 1514) declares, ‘All peoples have the right to self-determination; by virtue of that
right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and
cultural development.’ 14 In addition, self-determination is recognized in the UN International
Covenant of 1966, which echoes Resolution 1514: ‘All people have the right to self-determination, creating sovereign statehood. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

 

 

Somaliland and the SADR’s quests for independence share several similarities, but there are also specific factors that differentiate and significantly complicate them. Both territories were former colonies of European states. What is now Somaliland was once a British colony. The SADR was originally part of territory colonized by Spain in 1884. The specificities relating to the decolonization of these territories are key to understanding the challenges they now face.

Zeroing in: Somaliland

Somaliland is in the Horn of Africa. The Somali territory was colonized by the French, British and Italians from the end of the 19th century. The area claimed today by the self-declared Republic of Somaliland was under British colonization, whereas modern-day Somalia – excluding the Republic of Somaliland – was known as Italian Somaliland, in reference to its colonial occupiers. The land colonized by the French and known as French Somaliland is today’s Republic of Djibouti.

The British approach to governance in the region differed significantly from that of the French and Italians. British Somaliland clans were allowed to maintain their nomadic lifestyle and continued using their laws and decision-making mechanisms. Drawing on the work of John Drysdale, an expert on the region, Jhazbhay points to ‘three concurrent legal systems’ active under British colonial rule: ‘secular law in the English language, Islamic law in the Arabic language, and unwritten Somali traditional law.

British Somaliland declared its independence in 1960, followed shortly thereafter by Italian Somaliland. However, Somaliland was an independent state for only five days before uniting with what would become today’s Somalia. Somaliland was formally recognized by 35 countries, including all five permanent members of the UN Security Council. This merger of northern and southern Somali territories has been described by observers as the ‘[superimposition of] contemporary politics on post-colonial politics’ and not a reflection of a common Somali identity.24 Almost immediately after their unification, friction between the north and south began. Whether owing to their distinct colonial histories and governance structures; economies; judicial, administrative, language and education systems; and identity, as Huliaras has argued, or to the reversion to pre-colonial clan-state structures, as argued by Ingiriis, unification proved unsustainable. These frictions widened during the first constitutional referendum in 1961, which the north’s Somali National League boycotted.

 

 

Somaliland officials have repeatedly claimed the borders of the former British Somaliland not for colonial nostalgia but to retain a separate entity. For over 30 years, Somaliland’s claim to independence was suspended or subsumed by Cold War geopolitics.

The basis for Somaliland’s sovereignty

There are several legal arguments that justify Somaliland’s case for self-determination.

The first is that its inhabitants have become a unique ‘people’ and therefore qualify for the right to self-determination under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It has also been argued that this distinct self-identity was reinforced during their targeted persecution by the Siad Barre regime.

The second legal argument is based on decolonization, as inscribed in the OAU charter, which states that member states must ‘respect the borders of all member states existing on their achievement of national independence’. Based on this logic, Somaliland’s independence is justified because its borders align with that of the former British Somaliland. Furthermore, although the people of Somaliland consented to the union with South Somalia to form the Somali Republic (Somalia), during the procedure of unification the people of the north were not consulted adequately. The north was marginalized and Hargeisa was downgraded to a provincial headquarters Political appointments were also unevenly allocated to the south, including that of the first president and prime minister.

 

 

The third justification for Somaliland’s independence relates to the grave human rights violations during the Siad Barre regime. This falls within the nexus of remedial theory. This theory argues that where ‘serious and persistent violations of human rights exist… and no remedy except self-determination is feasible’, the right to self-determination is valid. The people of Somaliland were targeted during the Siad Barre dictatorship, which reinforced their distinct sense of self-identity forged during colonialism to a point where it is not feasible to conceive that they could live harmoniously in a state governed in Mogadishu,
as argued by Somaliland officials. This theory was applied in South Sudan’s secession, but with one key difference: the willingness of the Sudanese government to negotiate and to ultimately accept the referendum of the people of South Sudan to secede.

Authors

Isabel Bosman
Holds an MA in Political Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), Johannesburg. She is a researcher in the African Governance and Diplomacy Program at the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA).

Laura Rubidge
is a Foreign Policy Researcher and Project Coordinator in the Office of the Director of Research at SAIIA. She obtained a BA in Political Science and a BA (Hons) in International Relations from the University of Pretoria. She has recently completed her MA in International Relations at Wits.

Kendra Connock
is a former Konrad Adenauer Foundation Scholar at SAIIA. She holds a BA and BA (Hons) in International Relations from the University of Pretoria. She has recently graduated from Wits with an MA in International Relations and is currently a PhD candidate in the Wits department of International Relations.