Hey everybody, so as you know, I am working on the scripts for the next few episodes
Which means I got to give you a little bit of a filler week now
This video is gonna be kind of on a little bit of a touchy subject
But I kind of have to make it because as some of you know, if you've been following me on social media
I announced that we are gonna have a Geograbee in the self-declared, yet not recognized by the UN State of
Somaliland what is it? is it Somalia, is it its own thing? Is it safe to go there?
I heard some scary things about Somalia, are there pirates? Alright, calm yourself down for a bit, before we get into this though
I'm gonna make a little bit of a disclaimer. Clearly. I am NOT Somali or Somali Lander. I mean, come on
Do I look like one? I do not claim to be your ultimate authority that can speak on this topic
All I can do is report historically documented incidences and give objective facts and data as we know it
I am not making any claim as to whether I agree or disagree with either side of the Somalia - Somaliland dispute
I'm just gonna lay it out as best as I can for you and then you can come to your conclusions at the end
Simple. All right
and with that being said
What is this whole?
Somaliland thing? The self declared state of Somaliland is essentially found in the north part of the Horn of Africa to Somalia
It is made up of these five northern regions
However to a Somali Lander it is divided into six regions, in a nutshell
this used to be a British colony
and the rest of Somalia used to be colonized by Italy, in short the British said that they would leave if they United with the
rest of the Italian colonized part of Somalia on July 1st
1960. On June 26 the British officially left which meant for five days Somaliland actually kind of was its own
Independent entity (during that time they actually got recognition from like 35 different countries around the world). Finally on July 1st 1960
They approved the bill that would unify them all together as one Somalia seven years later
This guy was appointed prime minister by the first president
The first president was assessed in a two years later by his own bodyguard which led to a military coup led by a brutal dictator
That would rule the country for twenty-one years in the 80s resistance movements started all over the country specifically this one in the north
Which was like a predecessor to what would eventually become the declared state of Somaliland. That dictator was not happy
He bombed the two largest cities in the north
Hargeisa the headquarters of the Opposition and Burao, numbers are hard to estimate but even the most conservative numbers will say somewhere around
50,000 to 100,000 people were killed in these bombings and about 400,000 people were displaced as refugees mostly to Ethiopia
Now this all seems kind of confusing, why all the animosity? Why all the conflict?
well
There's a lot of reasons that go into this and it really kind of depends on who you ask but the one thing that both
Somalis and Somali Landers will say is that it has a lot to do with the clans of Somalia
There are five main parent clans in Somalia and the one where the british protectorate used to be was
Predominantly inhabited by the Isaaq clan
The first president was from the Hawiye clan and the first prime minister that he appointed was from the Isaaq clan
this was kind of controversial which led to the military coup led by Bhadra who was from the DAR old clan eventually in
1991 Batteries 21 year rule kind of collapsed mostly because Ethiopia and Libya came in and they just went buck wild
Also, there was a bunch of mess in the south
Anyway with all the Islamic insurgent groups, which kind of subsequently led to the Civil War
So clearly their hands were tied and they were doomed to end. Anyway during all this time. The North was like, huh?
Yeah, that's what you get. I'm claiming independence. You can handle all your drama without me
I'm out and since 1991 the self-declared state of Somaliland has pretty much operated independently, they have their own government
President postal system currency passport. In fact, if you decide to visit they even have their own Somaliland visa
They will not accept the Somali visa and it's strange because like diplomatically everything has to kind of be like low-key with them today
No country fully recognizes Somaliland as a fully sovereign state the UN considers them an autonomous region of Somalia
the biggest reason being because the UN and the African Union kind of agreed that if
Somaliland became independent it would kind of ignite like other violent separatist groups in the region. So to kind of keep everything calm
Let's just not recognize it nonetheless today. They are definitely not closed off to the world and they have a lot of
informal ties today eight countries recognize the Somaliland Passport three countries have
Somaliland consulates Ethiopia Djibouti and Turkey two countries have liaison offices for
Somaliland Denmark and Kenya and 12 other countries have
Representative offices and more are set to possibly open in the future
Oh and their application to hold an observer position in the Commonwealth is still pending
Also the financial company dahab Schiele headquartered in the UAE
They handle somewhere around two-thirds of all of the money transfers coming into Somaliland from outside remittances
Which really helps them out as a lot of people don't even work with their
See rate since 1991 refugees have been coming back and they've been repatriating. They get immediate citizenship
They have a shipping port at Virbhadra on the Gulf of Aden. They have shopping malls modern buildings
Everyone has cell phones in general. It seems to be kind of pretty chill there
I mean they did have a few skirmishes on the border with them and Puntland
Which is also kind of like another breakaway thing and that's a whole other story
So as you can tell, you know, they have a lot of international interaction
You know business trade technology is coming in things are happening and yet they are completely
Unrecognized, so that kind of begs the question
What does the future of this self-declared state of Somaliland look like?
Well, it kind of depends on who you ask like
If you ask a Somali person, they'll probably say we do not see them as independent. They will never be independent
It's better if they just drop the whole thing and seek full unification all over again with us
We are their cousins. We speak the same language. We have the same religion
We are one people if you ask a Somali lender
They might say something like the bombings by battery have sealed our fate
we cannot go back and through a slow process of showing the world that we are a
progressing safe hard-working people that strive for socio-economic freedom
We hope that our plight can be heard and that maybe we can be recognized globally on a diplomatic
Scale and from there the discussion begins and I take my bow and leave it to them
It is important to note though that in the past few years
Somalia has been kind of a little bit opening up a little bit to Somali landing
For example in 2017 premier bank in Mogadishu Somalia opened up their first branch in how to Gaza
Somalis from Somalia can visit
Somaliland but it's kind of weird because it's like they have to kind of cross the border into what they consider their own country
I mean ultimately it's kind of hard to say because there's so much
You know backstory and information that goes into this everybody has an opinion, you know
Just talk to a Somali or Somaliland or if you want to know more about it
That's a it's a touchy subject and I'm gonna go there. Anyway, hope this helps stay cool. Stay tuned