Somaliland: A new perspective

Somaliland: A new perspective



by Makwaia wa Kuhenga
Daily News
Tanzania

Hargeisa (Qaran news)-
THIS IS my first perspective with a dateline. I am filing in this style deliberately and for a good reason. Not many people know that there are two countries in Africa almost with the same name and the same people.

The most famous one is Somalia whose capital is Mogadishu. It is, to all intent and purposes a collapsed state. War rages in Somalia. But there is Somaliland -- formerly a British colony. The capital is Hargeisa. It is all-peaceful up here.

It is from this spot that I am filing this perspective. I arrived here about a week ago invited by the Government of Somaliland. When I set out on this trip, a friend warned: "Chunga! Risasi huko!" (Beware of bullets!) He had confused my destination to fratricidal Somalia's Mogadishu.

In fact as I landed at Hargeisa airport in Somaliland -- I was nervous. I was nervous throughout my last leg as I transited Addis Ababa boarding Ethiopian Airways all along from Dar es Salaam.
Aboard the flight to Hargeisa, I twitched in my seat nervously worried that the plane could as well be the target of some gunmen lurking somewhere.

But it was not to be. Somaliland is situated on the northern side of the Horn of Africa with the Gulf of Aden to the north, Somalia (Mogadishu) to the east, Ethiopia to the south and west and Djibouti to the north-west is as peaceful with people going about their normal activities as anywhere under the sun.

There were few planes as I landed at the tarmac of Hargeisa airport -- in fact a couple of charter planes were on the tarmac, one of which I learned later had brought into the country a British Minister in the Foreign and Commonwealth office.

The news bolstered my nerves a little because it gave me both pleasure and confidence that the big boys of the world were interested in this place after all in spite of the fact that Somaliland is yet to be recognized by both the United Nations and the African Union - AU.

Someone came right to the foot of the plane paging my name and I beckoned on him. Soon I was shaking the hands of a couple of officials who had come to receive me -- the Director-General of the Somaliland state television and the newly appointed Consul-General of Somaliland to Tanzania, Mr Ige Ibrahim.

I was ushered in to the VIP lounge -- grinning and happy with myself that journalists too deserve VIP treatment! (Yes, don't we? We are the ones who do the first draft of history!)

The ride to town began soon after my passport was stamped. It was a very interesting experience. Here was a town quite literally located downhill (Bondeni) as Hargeisa is surrounded by mountains looking quite novel at the end of one's eyesight.

The first impression about the town appeared to me like Zanzibar or Unguja town rolled into two. Traffic was sparse but busy. People went about their business normally and at peace with themselves. I saw some traffic lights and some men in uniform with whistles whom I believed to be traffic policemen.

Here people drive on the right -- which is scary for people coming from countries like mine, which keep to the left when driving.

As we drove along, one of my hosts pointed to me the remains of a MIG fighter hoisted up above in the air. "This is the remains of a fighter jet plane by the army of Gen Siad Barre as he sought to pacify the people of Hargeisa to succumb to his rule in Mogadishu," he told me.

Gen Siad Barre was the military leader of Somalia and actually the last best-known Somali Head of State before the disappearance of the Somalia entity, an ill-fated union between the former Italian colonized Somalia with British Somaliland at independence in 1960.

I also saw bullet ridden houses which still hang around in downtown Hargeisa -- reminding people and visitors that it was not all well in the intervening two decades.

The route from the airport into downtown was an indicator that one was visiting an impoverished state standing out alone in the world unrecognized but "deciding to recognize itself" as its Minister for Economic Planning, Mr Ali Ibrahim told me in the course of my visit.
In fact, lack of affluence is something one notes as I did when I visited a couple of Government Ministries including the state television station.

It is so rudimentary, I noted but still people are managing a smile and working with as little Spartan resources at their disposal. I imagined what a Tanzanian Minister would feel when confronted with an office with the barest and most modest furniture.

"I am dead sure some of our ministers would refuse to occupy the offices until they were well furnished to their taste," I reflected allowing myself a discreet chuckle.

But here is a country soldiering on -- depending on own meager resources -- deriving from livestock which is a major preoccupation of the three million people of Somaliland who are basically pastoralists.

In fact I learnt in the course of my stay that it is Somali people in the Diaspora who are also making a major contribution in terms of subvention to their fellow country people.

There is no donor community to count on except a few multilateral UN agencies who are in Somaliland involved in humanitarian support and that is about all. There is no foreign embassy in Somaliland because the country is yet to be granted formal recognition by the United Nations and African Union.

But this sad predicament, in a sense is hidden strength for Somaliland because the spirit of self-reliance is being imbued from the word go.

Makwaia wa KUHENGA is a Senior Journalist and Author currently on a visit to Hargeisa, Somaliland.