United Arab Emirates (UAE) to open a military base in Somaliland.

By Staff Writer 

Nairobi. 08, November, 2018 United Arab Emirates (UAE) to open a military base in Somaliland.

A United Arab Emirates(UAE) military base in Somaliland will begin operations in June 2019. This is in a quest to grow its military presence in the horn of Africa and protect trade flows through the Bab-el-mandeb channel, a key shipping lane used by oil tankers and other cargo vessels en route to the Suez Canal.

The Somaliland base had been under discussion since 2016, when the former Ethiopian prime minister Haile Mariam Desalegn expressed the unease in Ethiopia about a UAE base being established in the Eritrean port town of Assab. He asked the Emirati government to consider switching the facility to Berbera, a port town in Somaliland

UAE supports the Saudi-Arabia led war against Houthi rebels in Yemen, and the Emirati footholds in Somaliland and Eritrea will provide strategic locations.

The 42 square -kilometer facility base in the Somaliland port town of Berbera will consist of a naval base and two parallel runways. It will also include a 300-meter L-shaped jetty- which is 75 per cent complete- to support the military airport and also incorporate a coastal surveillance system, which will be used to protect the base and monitor the territory’s 800-kilometer coastline, said UAE former ambassador Bashe Awil Omar, who is now the Kenyan envoy.

There have been incidences of pirates hijacking vessels off the Somaliland’s coast, including the seizure of a vessel in 2017. Piracy, illegal fishing, toxic dumping are some of the issues the base will watch, as Somaliland does not have resources to watch its coast.

UAE is also expected to train Somaliland’s coastguards. “With the activities from the DP world, we hope to get a big piece of the cake. We are the only entity that has the legal authority to police and implement the law of the sea on the Somaliland coast,” said captain Abdullah Omar, an adviser to the Somaliland coastguard.

Source: Bloomberg

“The U.A.E. military base will help the whole region — piracy, illegal fishing, toxic dumping: we don’t have resources to watch our coast,” Bashe said in an interview in Somaliland’s main city of Hargeisa. “The U.A.E. has become the hub of the whole region in terms of trade. For the U.A.E. to secure that strategic position, it cannot do that if it does not secure the lifeline of trade.”

The 42 square-kilometer (16 square-mile) facility will consist of a naval base and two parallel runways, he said. Situated adjacent to a port operated by state-owned DP World Ltd., its first runway of 4.9-kilometers is almost 60 percent complete, according to Bashe, who moved to the post of ambassador to Kenya in August.

Military Training

The U.A.E. is separately expected to train the Somaliland coastguard, Bashe said.

“With the DP World development activity, we now hope to get a big piece of the cake,” Captain Abdullah Omar, an adviser to the Somaliland coastguard, said in an interview. “We are the only entity that has the legal right to police and implement the law of the sea on the Somaliland coast.”

The U.A.E. Foreign Ministry in Abu Dhabi didn’t respond to emailed requests for comment. Abdulla Darwish, managing director of Sharjah-based Divers Marine Contracting LLC, who said in an interview last year that his company was awarded a $90 million construction contract for the naval base, didn’t respond to two requests for comment sent to his mobile phone.

The facility will include a 300-meter (984-foot) L-shaped jetty “to support the military airport” Darwish said last year. The jetty is 75 percent complete, according to Bashe, who’s visited the military base.

Ethiopian Unease

The Somaliland base has been under discussion since 2016, when former Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn expressed Ethiopian unease about a U.A.E. base being established in the Eritrean port town of Assab and asked the Emirati government to consider switching the facility to Berbera, according to Bashe. Former sworn enemies, Ethiopia and Eritrea this year agreed a rapprochement.

Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesman Meles Alem didn’t respond to two calls and two text messages seeking comment.

The U.A.E. was given the lease for the military airport in May 2016 “in exchange for funding in various projects” provided by the U.A.E. government represented by the Abu Dhabi Fund for International Development, Bashe said.

Hailemariam’s request for the U.A.E. to go to Berbera instead of Assab reached “the highest levels” in Abu Dhabi, Bashe said. The emirate is led by Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed. Talks followed with “key” Abu Dhabi ministers, he said.

United Nations investigators of sanctions on Eritrea and Somalia said in a draft report to the UN Security Council that satellite imagery of Assab indicated the continued presence of multiple naval vessels. It noted the continued expansion of the base.

“Berbera and Assab could be entry points for the U.A.E.,” Bashe said. “Ethiopia is very important to them in terms of trade.’’

— With assistance by Zainab Fattah

Source: Bloomberg