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Horn, Red Sea Braces for Instability as Somaliland Moves Toward Islamist Reunification With Somalia (2)
Posted on July 16, 2010 at 09:38:41 PM by mb3
Indeed, starting 2008, the SPLM began using oil revenues in order to purchase heavy weapons — including tanks, artillery and rockets — in the former Soviet Union and ship them, via Kenyan ports, to Sudan in preparation for the anticipated resumption of fighting. The extent of the procurement efforts of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) was revealed in September when Somali pirates working for Sudanese intelligence hijacked a Ukrainian cargo ship carrying 33 T-72 tanks and crates of small arms. The ship later released after Kiev showed proper end-user documents identifying Kenya as the owner of the weapons and the pirates received a $3.2-million ransom. The flow of weapons has markedly intensified since Spring 2009. Some of these weapons were already used in the pre-election clashes in March 2010.
In early Summer 2010, the SPLA drafted plans to train pilots and acquire combat aircraft and helicopters. “We want to transform SPLA from a guerilla force into a veritable military,” SPLA spokesman Maj.-Gen. Dame Koala said. Khartoum immediately warned that the establishment of an air force or navy in the south would violate the CPA. But SPLM leaders reiterated their commitment to establishing a proper military using oil revenues.
In May 2010, SPLM Secretary General Pagan Amum warned in an interview with the Saudi-owned Al-Sharq al-Awsat that the establishment of an Islamic Republic in Sudan, as advocated by Bashir in the aftermath of the April elections, would lead to the break-up of the country. “If the National Congress Party insists on implementing a program for building the Islamic Republic then southerners will have no choice but to vote for secession. If the National Congress Party insists on imposing its policies of oppression and racial discrimination then southerners must secede, and if the National Congress Party continues to plunder the wealth of the south and unjustly divide oil revenues in the absence of transparency, then southerners will have to break free from those tyrants,” Amum warned.
In early June 2010, Amum raised the ante in another interview with Al-Sharq al-Awsat in which he asserted that unification was unlikely under current conditions. “In the shadow of the National Economic Salvation regime, and its Islamic project, there is no solution, or even a drop of hope or Sudanese unity. … There is no possibility or even the slightest chance to achieve Sudanese unity unless the NCP reoccupied the South and takes control of it through military force. This would be a bloody step, and this would not represent unification but occupation.” Amum confirmed that Kiir is actively preparing to form a government of the South in their capital Juba. All the best SPLM cadres were transferred to Juba and only expandable SPLM officials were sent to fill CPA-mandated positions in the Khartoum Government.
Amum warned that the suggested postponement of the referendum would restart the civil war. “Any side that calls for postponement would, in other words, be calling for the Sudanese people to return to fighting. This would be a dangerous and irresponsible action to take.” Although the South prefers to secede peacefully, Juba is cognizant that war is all but inevitable. Amum stated that “if there is no other choice but war, we will enter it [war]. The Sudanese People’s Liberation Army is capable of solving these problems and restoring security,” Amum stressed, “it is one of the largest armies in the region, and it has fought long wars, has excellent combat experience and is currently being transformed into a regular army.”
As is the case of Somaliland, Egypt and Eritrea lead calls for the southern Sudanese referendum on self-determination to be postponed.
Possible Outcomes
In summary, coupled with the linked developments in Sudan, and as a result of the pivotal change in Hargeisa on July 1, 2010, the following developments should be expected, at the very least:
1. Increased Iranian support and capability for African, Arabian Peninsula, and Pakistani jihadist and terrorist activities, including support for the “Islamic Republic of Eastern Arabia”, and direct actions aimed at overthrowing the present Yemen Government. This will all ultimately impact on trade costs and energy costs;
2. Increased piracy activities out of Somalian Puntland, with less ability for external powers to intervene or influence;
3. Significant revival of Eritrean-Ethiopian tensions, leading to the increased prospect for renewed conventional war;
4. Significant increase in Ethiopia-Egypt tensions, with a number of possible outcomes;
5. Spread of Somalia-style warlordism into Somaliland, and a new set of competitions for power over the entire Somalian entity, with unforeseeable results, other than that the competition will be protracted and indecisive. The likelihood will be that the African Union and United Nations will be called on, again, to provide peacekeeping forces for Somalia, with significant cost in capital and lives for the international community;
6. Potential for increased insurgency aimed at overthrowing the Djibouti Government of Pres. Ismail Omar Guelleh (bearing in mind that “French Somaliland”, now Djibouti, is one of the stars in the pan-Somalists pantheon) (and bearing in mind that Djibouti remains a thorn in the side of Eritrean Pres. Isayas, who sees now only Djibouti providing an escape valve for Ethiopia);
7. Increased activities by Eritrean-backed terrorist and guerilla activities inside Ethiopia, possibly with the revived support of Libyan Pres. Mu’ammar al-Qadhafi and Egypt.
The interactive result of all of this, including the Sudanese developments, will be to increase the dangers to shipping in the Red Sea/Suez SLOC, and compound threats to Yemen and Saudi Arabia, at the very least. This contributes significantly to Iran’s strategy to weaken Saudi Arabia’s influence. Ironically, many of the jihadist/Islamist activities in the Horn have been ostensibly Wahabbist/neo-salafist in nature, deriving from the State-sponsored Saudi sect of Sunni Islam, which have — as with Osama bin Laden’s proselytization — been used against the Saudi State and interests.
Ironically, early recognition of the sovereignty of the Republic of Somaliland when it broke away — as it had every legal right to do — from the ill-fated union with Somalia in 1990 would have prevented this situation, and would have helped stabilize the Horn of Africa long before this time. Egypt, the Arab League, and Saudi Arabia worked hard to prevent this recognition, but the African Union (AU), and the major trading powers with a vital interest in the Red Sea, could have unilaterally recognized Somaliland.
The absolutely spurious claim that Somaliland could not be recognized because it was a “breakaway” state from Somalia should have been recognized for what it was: legally nonsensical. Somaliland was fully independent and sovereign from the United Kingdom — its earlier colonial overlord — before it joined into the union with Italian Somaliland.
To say that Somaliland could not withdraw, and be recognized, from that union in 1990 would be tantamount to saying that Egypt could no longer be recognized as independent when it withdrew from its “United Arab Republic” experiment with Syria.
The outgoing Government of Somaliland was warned, privately, of the moves being made to overthrow it by using the occasion of the Presidential election to stage what amounts to a coup de manœuvre, and yet proved incapable of addressing the threat. GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs also publicly identified the process through 2010. And yet no-one acted, other than the extremists and their Western supporters who may well have been promised resource concessions in the region as payment for their support.
Analysis by Gregory R. Copley, Editor, with Yossef Bodansky, Senior Editor, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs.
(c) 2010 International Strategic Studies Association, www.StrategicStudies.org
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