Somaliland and Somalia at Heart of Regional Tensions

A series of meetings between leaders in the Horn of Africa has resulted in rifts rather than reconciliation.

The Kenyan government has reacted to attempts by Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khayre to sabotage the meeting on 5 March in Nairobi between the Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed Ali, and the Somalian president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmajo.

Since they view Khayre as the Trojan horse of the deputy director of the National Intelligence Security Agency (NISA), Fahad Yasin Haji Dahir, who is seen as Qatar’s inside man, the Kenya’s have decided to go after him. As Fahad Yasin has interests in several companies in Kenya, Nairobi has asked him to tone it down, and given that Qatar owns shares in the Italian oil company ENI, which is supporting Kenya in its maritime border dispute with Somalia, he is in a difficult position.

According to our sources, the Djiboutian president Ismail Omar Guelleh also used his official visit to Mogadishu from 16 to 17 March to discreetly warn the Somalian government to be wary of the Ethiopians and Eritreans who, according to him, do not want to see a return to stability in Somalia. He revisited the subject indirectly in his speech to the Somalian parliament by urging MPs to defend the interests of their constituents and their country by exercising greater control over the actions of their government.

Meanwhile, on 18 March, an Eritrean delegation consisting of the minister of foreign affairs, Osman Saleh Mohamed, and the longstanding special advisor to Issayas Aferworki, Yemane Gebreab, visited Hargeisa. The decision of the Eritreans to dispatch this delegation to Somaliland, which is seeking independence from Mogadishu, is a response to IOG’s visit to Somalia, since Asmara and Djibouti are a long way from having buried the hatchet.

Asmara’s two emissaries praised the economic, political and social successes of their host country and announced that Eritrea was keen to develop closer cooperation with the government of the Somaliland president, Musa Bihi Abdi. Eritrea has been hosting a Saudi base following a military partnership accord signed in April 2016 with King Salman bin Abdulaziz al Saud (ION 1430), and Somaliland is part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the coalition of Gulf states involved in the war in Yemen, having allowed the United Arab Emirates to construct a military base on its soil.

Indian Ocean Newsletter 05-04-2019.