Honourable Farah Maalin, Deputy Speaker of Kenya’s parliament, has recently paid a highly controversial visit to the northern breakaway region (NW Somalia) which calls itself Somaliland. This is an entity dominated by one clan among the area’s five main clans, and masquerading as a State based on the boundaries of former British Somaliland, a territory which irrevocably united with the rest of Somalia in July 1960. It is an enclave where the aspirations of the pro-secession clan are deemed by them as paramount and non-negotiable whereas those of the other four unionist clans in the region count for nothing, with no choice but to go along with the secession on their own accord or else be brought to heel by force as happened. This is the backdrop to the area to which the Hon Deputy Speaker has paid an “official” visit.

During his visit, he went over the top in his praise of the enclave and his endorsement of its policies and actions. He has to all intents and purposes recognized Somaliland without saying so in so many words. No one can therefore blame his audiences if they concluded that the Deputy Speaker, as a high-ranking official, was representing his Kenyan government and speaking on its behalf.

Until now, the Deputy Speaker has been a man held in high regard among almost all Somalis who have come to know him or heard of him in Kenya and Somalia. Before his election to parliament in the Kenya general election of December 2007, he was a regular participant in the BBC Somali Service programmes where he would frequently call for peace, denounce foreign interference in Somalia and strongly defend the country’s territorial integrity. He rightly saw a peaceful, united country not only in the interest of Somalia but also its neighbours and above all Kenya, given that the adverse fallouts from Somalia’s turmoil would transcend borders.

All the more shocking then that the Hon Deputy Speaker would now betray all these valued positions by ingratiating himself with Somaliland- a secessionist entity which inherently embodies all the dangers he derided or decried in the past. Somali politicians, irrespective of which country they come from in the Horn of Africa, are notoriously known- more than their other African counterparts- for making complete turnarounds in their political stances as they unscrupulously shift their ground in pursuit of personal interests of the day. Be that as it may, this unexpected turnabout comes out of the blue and one has to ask what has swayed or come over the Hon Farah Maalin?

Somaliland has been assiduously soliciting recognition from both Ethiopia and Kenya and has been ready in both cases, but more so in the case of Ethiopia, to pay any price to win their good turns in terms of recognition. Its widely purported direct financial support to Raila Odinga campaign in the presidential election of 2007, counting on recognition should he win, has been the talk of town among Somalis in Kenya, Somalia and beyond. Unfortunately for Somaliland but happily for the rest of Somalia, Mr. Raila Odinga lost the election and much as he is the Prime Minister in the current coalition government of Kenya, it is the president and not him who has the final word on conferring recognition on another country.

What is not as yet known is whether Hon Farah Maalin visit to Somaliland was at the behest of Prime Minister Raila Odinga and meant to be a sop to the disappointed secessionists who had put their money on the losing horse, or whether it was one independently initiated by the Deputy Speaker for his own ends? Rightly or wrongly, the perception among most Somalis is that Somaliland will never give up buying support in Kenya, and corruption being what it is in Kenya as elsewhere in Africa, they are bound to speculate whether Hon Speaker has fallen for Somaliland’s irresistible blandishments that are always on offer to those it targets.

What is clear though is the tremendous propaganda boost the visit represents for Somaliland at a time when little else was going right for them. To its supporters, long despairing of recognition, the visit will be presented as presaging imminent recognition and will be exploited to the full by the ruling party and their authoritarian leader in the forthcoming presidential and parliamentary elections. At a time when the secessionists needed a little push to come back to the union fold, Hon Farah Maalin chose instead to give them a pat on the back for their much-vaunted but otherwise phoney achievements - a gesture that will only send the wrong message, stiffen their resolve and simply deepen their secessionist siege mentality.

Supporting the current Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) has been the mantra of both the Ethiopian and Kenyan governments. And while Kenya has been on the whole faithful to its pledges in the past, Ethiopia for its part has never missed an opportunity to undermine it or treat it as non-existent. In the meantime, all the available information suggests that Hon Farah Maalin’s visit to Somaliland has been initiated without the knowledge or concurrence of the TFG. It is therefore difficult to see the Kenya government endorsing such a visit over the head of the internationally recognised Somali government when it has nothing to gain from it and in fact much to lose.

Hon Farah Maalin’s escapade into Somaliland has been received by the locals and their administration like a “state visit”. He was taken to most parts of the region so that the despairing and increasingly disbelieving separatists will see for themselves the new friend and supporter Somaliland has at last gained in a critical country like Kenya. Quite clearly, this was a public relations and propaganda feat engineered and organised by the rulers of the enclave to publicise, as they see it, their “rightful” claim to recognition.

The most outrageous part of his visit was his trip to the three northern unionist regions of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn (SSC), invaded and occupied by Somaliland in October 2007 on the ground that they were once part of former British Somaliland and because they refused to join the secession. Its action was driven by the misguided belief that control of a territory by force will somehow beget recognition and that occupation will trump the inalienable rights of the occupied regions to be part of Somalia. Both Somaliland and their quest, Hon Farah Maalin, have failed to grasp the fact that what sways the international community is not resort to force and occupation but international law and the Charter of the United Nations which are on the side of Somalia and its peoples including those in the SSC.

The Deputy Speaker’s pronouncement at the end of his visit that the three SSC regions should forgo their membership of Somalia and instead accept Somaliland’s tutelage is a blatant denial of the rights of the SSC people who oppose to be part of the secession. It is amazing that the Hon Deputy Speaker should make such an unwarranted and unacceptable statement when his own government as well as the rest of the international community see the SSC regions, Somaliland itself and for that matter the rest of the country as being all part and parcel of Somalia

Aiding and abetting the break-up of Somalia as Hon Farah Maalin is doing in northern Somalia is like playing with fire and it is not difficult to contemplate its dire consequences. For one thing, it could stoke up the conflict between the secessionists and the rest of unionist Somalia. That would give rise to new outflows of refugees and Kenya, already hosting nearly half a million Somali refugees, will be their preferred destination with all its socio-economic and environmental detriments. But that is not all. Lest some people forget, no countries are more vulnerable to secession than Somalia neighbours and Hon Farah Maalin’s constituencies in NE Kenya are the first to come to mind. Pan Somali nationalism might be dormant for now but Somali irredentism is not dead altogether and could once again come to life if actions or conditions conducive to its revival are at work.

Somaliland is not the only party which cherishes Hon Farah Maalin’s visit to the northern region of Somalia. So does, its arch-enemy. Lurking in the background, Al Shabaab craves its Jihadist mission with messianic zeal and would cherish extending its front line to Kenya if propitious opportunities present themselves. They may have as much reason to be grateful to the Hon Deputy Speaker as Somaliland has but for a different reason. All these things are not inevitable but can be forestalled with foresight and leadership on both sides. In this regard, it behoves the Kenyan government, and above all its foreign minister, to openly disown and dissociate his government from the Deputy Speaker’s provocative visit to northern Somalia and reaffirm Kenya’s support for the TFG and Somalia’s unity and territorial integrity. Both countries have presently enough problems on their plates without contending with the fallout from the Deputy Speaker’s ill-advised trip to Somalia’s rebel region.

Osman Hassan
Email address: ohassanomar@yahoo.co.uk