Somalia will go to war with Somaliland, not Ethiopia

On the first day of 2024, Somaliland’s President Muse Bihi and Ethiopia’s Premier Abiy Ahmed delivered a seismic announcement that resonated throughout the region. In Addis Ababa, shortly after Muse Bihi’s return from a conference in Djibouti, where he met Somalia’s president, the two leaders announced a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between their nations. The complete text of the MoU remains undisclosed, but Ethiopia’s summary of the deal suggests an agreement allowing Ethiopia access to the sea in exchange for shares in Ethiopian Airlines and an assessment of Somaliland’s pursuit of international recognition. Somaliland asserts that Ethiopia will formally recognize it, making it the first sovereign country to do so.

Unsurprisingly, this bold move has stirred a strong reaction from Somalia’s government and its citizens. The president of Somalia declared the agreement void, prompting the swift passage of a resolution by the Parliament to “annul” it. The government organized public demonstrations in Mogadishu and other cities across Somalia. Moreover, leaders from various sectors in Somalia, spanning government, opposition, and civil society, have resorted to populist rhetoric and publicly proclaiming readiness for war against Ethiopia.

Somalia Mourning Perceived Loss Opportunity

To observers in Somaliland and beyond, it may seem like Somalia is throwing juvenile tantrums. However, it is crucial to understand that Somalia’s reaction is rooted in its perception of recent successes to “bring Somaliland back to the fold”. What infuriated Somalia the most is in not the prospect of Ethiopia getting an access to the sea as President Mohamud himself hinted at his openess to that possibility. Rather it is the sense of an opportunity to submit Somaliland to its will slipping away from their hands with the possibilities that this deal opens for Somaliland.

This sense of a historic opportunity, however, is not the result of progress in the Hargeisa-Mogadishu dialogue; rather, they stem from setbacks plaguing President Muse Bihi’s administration in Somaliland and Mogadishu’s steps to capitalize on them. The president’s extended term in 2022 triggered a protracted political dispute, damaging his legitimacy and fostering deep polarization and mistrust in the country. That was compounded by losses in the eastern frontier conflict, where Somaliland’s army was expelled from strongholds near Las Anod after seven months of clashes. This the Somalian government abruptly capitalized on by recognizing the administration of Las Anod which claims three regions in Somaliland either wholly or partially. And finally, the neglect of economic development has finally caught up  with the country and put considerable strain on its strength.

In contrast to Muse’s setbacks, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s government achieved significant successes in the last quarter of the year, securing debt relief, East Africa Community membership, and the lifting of a long-standing weapons import ban.

These factors have emboldened Mogadishu’s administration to deliver what they see as the final blow to Somaliland’s quest for independence on the negotiation table.

Bitter Confrontation in Djibouti

Flushed with this perceived advantage, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud met with Muse Bihi in Djibouti on December 28, 2023. Sources close to the negotiations describe a tense encounter, devoid of pleasantries, where Somalia asserted its perceived advantage. Confronting Bihi on his “lack of legitimacy” and control over all of Somaliland’s territory, Somalia further issued a clear threat of destabilization in Somaliland’s western regions by exploiting clan cleavages. Insult was added to injury when Mohamud demanded that president Bihi represent only his personal interests and those of his immediate kin group as “there were no thing as Somaliland to speak off”.

Later statements from Somalia’s Minister of the Interior Ahmed Fiqi confirm this confrontational picture. Fiqi, addressing a rally in Mogadishu, stated that President Bihi’s faced tremendous challenges and that his hope was that the President would have resolved them by “surrender to” Somalia and continuing negotiations for reunification. In fact, the Somali side was so smug about their advantage in Djibouti that Minister Fiqi announced that it was a “historic milestone for the unification of the country”.

Indeed, the over-reaction from Mogadishu was nothing more than frustration over the loss of perceived opportunity. They see that the man whose back was to the wall had escaped their entrapment. And for that, they are willing to go to war, not against Ethiopia as Somalian officials have repeatedly stated, but against Somaliland. Somalia is too weak to maintain confrontation with Ethiopia for prolonged time. For one, Somalia depends on a large contingent of Ethiopian forces to keep Al-Shabab at bay. There is great difference in the resources and capacities of the two nations at this juncture. Even a diplomatic feud with Ethiopia is a futile endeavor for Somalia in the long run as with the exception of the impotent Egypt, there is hardly any country that would pick Somalia over Ethiopia.

Subterfuge and Subversion

In contrast, Somaliland as the setbacks of the previous year demonstrate, has its flaws that could be exploited. Somalia knows these very well and was capitalizing on them before the MoU interrupted them. So, with all its bluster against Ethiopia, it’s Somaliland that will bear the brunt of Somalia’s attack on multiple fronts.

Indeed, the first direct rebuttal of the MoU from Mogadishu was mobilizing “pro-union” politicians serving in Somalia’s parliament and government to condemn the deal. Apart from the rhetoric, the first concrete reaction was to turn back an Ethiopian plane from Hargeisa International Airport and claiming that a second plane, a Thai cargo carrier, was denied request to land in Hargeisa. These steps were quite the challenge to Somaliland’s claim of sovereignty over the land, air, and the representation of the people of the country.

However, Somalia’s fury over Somaliland’s self-determination as manifested in the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding does not end there. What follows the legalese arguments is concerted efforts to challenge Somaliland’s de facto sovereignty over the land. This takes the form of subversion, destabilization and attempts to break the consensus of Somaliland’s majority on the independence project. 

The first move in this regard sets the tone for Mogadishu’s approach to the Somaliland question from now onwards. Ahmed Fiqi, the face of the failed Djibouti meeting, conveyed a meeting with the “members of Awdal community” to work with the federal government in opposition to the MoU on January sixteenth. This was an obvious hint that Mogadishu would resort to stirring clan divisions to destabilize Somaliland. Another decision, not yet publicly disclosed but which parties privy to it reported, was the order to Federal officials hailing from Somaliland to start subversion activities with each official starting in their hometown. Sanaag region, where the Deputy Prime Minister comes from, is a prime target as per sources.  However, a more willing partner for Mogadishu would be the rebel-led Las Anod administration. Reports indicate a high-level visit from Mogadishu leaders to Las Anod to coordinate to strengthen the Las Anod insurgency to export the disorder further west to Togdheer and Sanag regions.

As tensions escalate, the long-deferred confrontation between Somaliland and Somalia over self-determination becomes inevitable, risking wider regional involvement. In this confrontation, Somaliland suffers from the obvious disadvantage of being led by a divisive and quite incompetent administration. However, as resilience is synonymous with Somaliland’s narrative, this will not be the first time it triumphed in adverse conditions. It is not Somaliland who we should fear for in this battle of wills, but the 20-year international effort to reinstall a state in Somalia.