The provocative and irresponsible disruption of a UNDP organised event in Hargeisa the other day by the secessionists based in NW Somalia (Somaliland) has come as no surprise to most Somalis. This is not an isolated case but only the latest of an established practice by the secessionists to hassle the UN agencies in order to get their way. As so often, they have been incensed by seeing their enclave included in the UNDP programme as part of Somalia when the UNDP has little choice but to dutifully follow the stance of the UN Security Council and the wider international community which consider the area as part and parcel of Somalia. Such nuances, however, do not cut much ice with the spoiled secessionists.
For too long, successive UNDP Country Resident Representatives (RR) based in Nairobi have gone out of their way to mollycoddle the secessionists and give in to their persistent nagging to the extent of treating their area for operational purposes as a de facto separate country from the rest of Somalia. Some Resident Representatives hailing from Britain harbour barely disguised empathy with the secessionist cause, hankering as they do for the days when the area was a British colony just as the separatists for their part crave for the good old days and the era of their former colonial master. This common bond goes all the way to the British Parliament.
Apart from sentimental attachments to former British Somaliland among some circles of the UN establishment in Nairobi assigned to Somalia, there is a more compelling reason for putting up with the tantrums of the over-indulged secessionists. These agencies are keen to maintain some visible presence in Somalia and in particular in those so-called peaceful, self-administered regions like Somaliland. Without this symbolic presence in the territory, manned by local staff, their self-serving pretensions that they are engaged in humanitarian and development mission for Somalia from their save comfortable sojourn in Nairobi would have been patently tendentious and untenable. This is not lost upon Somaliland which has exploited it to the full.
Having been pampered for all these years, is it any wonder the secessionists would have the audacity to challenge and bite the hands that feed them? Such brinkmanship is not altogether irrational. All too often in the past, when such confrontations arose, it was often the UNDP and other UN agencies which buckled and backed down. Avoiding any showdowns to the extent possible, or, if they do, going along with the unreasonable demands of their ungrateful beneficiaries has become the modus operandi for the UN agencies.
Apart from receiving the lion's share of the development aid and technical assistance earmarked for Somalia, the secessionists have succeeded to wrest numerous other concessions from UNDP and other UN agencies since they declared unilateral separation from Somalia in 1991. The most spectacular one was their acceptance of the name "Somaliland" as the area's official designation. Even if the words "North-West Somalia" were disingenuously added to it as an afterthought, as a sob to sooth the sensibilities of other Somalis, such cosmetic dressing detracts little from the boost UN agencies have given to the secessionists' cause. For all practical purposes and intents, the area is treated as a separate entity from Somalia and UN agencies talk of the area as Somaliland and only add North-West Somalia in formal documents.
UN agencies are fond to organise events in Hargeisa when alternative venues are available elsewhere in Somalia, for example in Puntland. Despite the financial and other benefits they derive from the meetings, workshops and seminars organised in Hargeisa by UNDP, participants arriving at Hargeisa airport from other regions in Somalia have been routinely detained and summarily deported for "illegally" entering what is after all part and parcel of Somalia. When such deplorable events took place in the past, UNDP and other agencies often looked the other way. Such lax, permissive approach have only whetted the secessionists' appetite as witnessed by the latest confrontation with the secessionists..
Another grand supportive gesture from the UN agencies to the secessionists is over the status of the unionist regions of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn (SSC). Riding roughshod over their rights, the UN agencies have accepted the secessionist's claim that these areas are part of Somaliland on the grounds they are theirs having been part of now defunct colonial territory of the same name. The fact that these unionist regions are part and parcel of Somalia, or that they have nothing to do with the secession and that they do not want to be associated with Somaliland, clearly did not weigh with the UN agencies.
The established practice among UN humanitarian agencies, under the aegis of the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia, is to yield to the wishes of the secessionist administration in Hargeisa on matters relating to the SSC regions. Rather than delivering humanitarian aid directly to the SSC regions, entailing less cost and time, it is often channelled through Somaliland where most of that aid is routinely siphoned off and the transfer of the rest unduly upheld as a weapon to force the needy SSC population to capitulate to the secession. It was in protest against these insidious practices that a delegation consisting of the traditional leaders and the Northern Somalia Unionist Movement made strong representations to the UN agencies in Nairobi last year. The jury is still out whether they have changed their ways or whether it is business as usual.
The absence of a functioning government in Somalia since 1991 has allowed these UN agencies to be a law unto themselves unaccountable to no one and to act as a government for Somalia by default. Though Somalia has presently a government, at least in name, it is in hock to the UN (and African Union peacekeeping forces) who ensure its survival. It is therefore unlikely to monitor or oversee the very entity that keeps it alive. This prevailing powerlessness from the Somali perspective vis-à-vis the UN agencies is one the latter very much savour. It is for no reason that many Somalis believe that the UN agencies based in Nairobi dealing with Somalia far from being a help are a hindrance to restoring Somalia's sovereignty and territorial unity so long as they nourish the secessionists' delusion that the de facto recognition they enjoy from these agencies is a prelude to a full recognition from the international community. The only alternative left is for concerned Somalis everywhere to organise concerted and coordinated direct actions against these agencies in Nairobi, as well as appeals to their respective headquarters which are not always conversant with what their field offices are up to. In the meantime, the time is well past and long overdue when the UN agencies should be standing their ground and threaten to pullout from the area altogether unless they are allowed to perform their activities unhindered in line with their mandate and their country agreements with Somalia.
O. H. OmarNSUM Excecutive Committee
Web: www.n-sum.org
Email:admin@n-sum.org
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