(MENAFN- SomTribune)
The Kenya Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on Thursday, indirectly supported what Somaliland had been telling the world for the past twenty-eight years: the international community must respect the 1964 OAU resolution on Africa to preserve pre-independence colonial borders.
Dusting off what it has not been saying in public lest it be accused of tacitly supporting the Somaliland contention, the Kenyan Foreign Minister seems to have been spooked into righteous indignation by Somalia's claims on territories and seas that Kenya claimed were its very own, within its inalienable, sovereign rights.
"In 1924, the Anglo-Italian treaty delineated the Kenya-Somalia boundary with 29 identifiable border points starting from the tri-point with Ethiopia on River Dawa in Mandera County to the Indian Ocean at Ishakanti in Lamu County," the statement said.
The argument this paragraph is promoting is that if Africa starts to go back on its signed word redrawing maps along ethnic and interest considerations, the repercussions will be so far-reaching and ensuing confusion, destruction so unfathomable.
The statement goes on to point out that Somalia at the time refused to sign the OAU resolution claiming parts of Kenya (the then Northern Frontier District [NFD]).
"Somalia's rejection of the OAU/AU decision on boundaries was in furtherance of its expansionist ideology of achieving Greater Somalia," it said.
Of course, the Greater Somalia, the statement mentions here is that which brought the British Protectorate of Somaliland and the Italian Somalia Trusteeship together at attainment of independence in 1960. In anticipation of this ‘greater Somalia' dream, the two anticipated that the NFD, Djibouti and the Ogaden and Reserve/Haud areas under the Ethiopian empire will eventually join them to complete the missing points of the five-pronged white star at the center of the then Somali Republic blue flag.
The statement went on to say that Somalia, to drive its irredentist ambitions home, started a Shifta war it militarily, financially and morally supported in the NFD areas from 1963 to 1967.
Siad Barre, the military dictator who kicked out the civilian government of the Somali Republic and all that it stood for in 1969, however, denounced his claims on territories hitherto claimed to be part of the Greater Somalia thing in 1981 at an OAU summit conference, thus releasing everyone from the obligation of that dream - including Somaliland although none realized it at the time.
In effect, what the Somalia-Kenya boundary dispute has brought out to light is the expansionist dreams of Mogadishu that, succeeding to partially lull the world into believing that it had always owned Somaliland, further spreaded its wings to Kenya only to burn the wax that held them to its body.
Somalia, if it succeeded with Kenya, had its trained on the Somali State of Ethiopia next.
It is now upon the African Union's toothless leadership to put a stop to the mercurial boundary shifts and claims Somalia has started with Somaliland. It must respect the oft-toted, dismally abused own 1964 borders resolution.
That resolution releases Somaliland of all obligations to a defunct ‘Somali Republic' which is no way translatable to the current ‘Federal Government of Somalia'.
Hence, Somaliland is not legally bound to Somalia in any way, and is perfectly within its legal rights to restore its pre-independence borders with Ethiopia, Somalia, and Djibouti, and it behooves on the rest of Africa, first, and the world to realize how grossly wrong, inhuman, and politically blind it is not to fully re-recognize the Republic of Somaliland as it did in 1960.
Or else..the world must brace itself to blue-flag-draped revival of a Greater Somalia.
MENAFN2302201902070000ID1098160357
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.