Here’s the full interview that I gave to Addis Standard’s Abdi Biyenssa about the recently signed Memorandum of Understanding between Ethiopia and Somaliland, excerpts of which were included in his article titled “In-depth: Navigating new waters: How Ethiopia’s recent sea access deal with Somaliland redefines geopolitics in the Horn and beyond”.
- What is your comment on the Memorandum of Understanding between Ethiopia and Somaliland?
The MoU was a diplomatic masterstroke because it peacefully and pragmatically resolved Ethiopia’s landlocked dilemma in a mutually beneficial way. Ethiopia will receive commercial-military port rights in exchange for officially recognizing Somaliland’s independence and granting it stakes in national companies. Through this, the first will preemptively avert impending domestic-international problems caused by its landlocked status while the second will diplomatically and economically profit.
Somaliland has proven over the past three decades that it’s independent in all respects and thus truly deserves formal recognition as a member of the international community. It’s also a responsible regional stakeholder after upholding peace and security this whole time in contrast to the country from whom it separated (or redeclared its independence according to one’s perspective) in 1991. The socio-economic developmental gap between them is also a testament to the success of Somaliland’s independence.
It’s no small feat that Ethiopia is the first to recognize Somaliland since it’s the historical cradle of the Pan-African and anti-imperialist movements in Africa, which was why Addis was chosen to host the African Union’s headquarters. This move is therefore both substantive and symbolic, and it could inspire other countries on the continent and elsewhere to follow suit, such as the UAE and possibly the UK. The end result is that a new connectivity corridor is being pioneered to bring more development to the Horn.
- What are the implications that it poses for Ethiopia-Somalia and the Horn of Africa?
Somalia reacted furiously to this news, but it has nobody to blame but itself for creating the conditions within which Somaliland seceded (or redeclared its independence according to one’s perspective) and then failing to restore the state’s writ over that region throughout the last three decades. Some third parties have an interest in manipulating Somalia into going to war with Ethiopia over Somaliland in order to fight Ethiopia to the last Somali as part of their hegemonic divide-and-rule proxy war plans.
Somalia must therefore exercise restraint in spite of the high emotions involved right now in order to avoid falling for this trap, which would only end badly for it and bring even more hardship on its people if its leadership decides to do others’ bidding as their proxy against Ethiopia. Somalia couldn’t reassert control over Somaliland since 1991 and nowadays can’t even fully liberate itself from Al Shabaab, not to mention resolving other clan and regional disputes, so it’s unimaginable that it’ll suddenly succeed now.
The best-case scenario is therefore that Somalia recognizes the military-political ground realities formed over the past one-third of a century and then negotiates a “dignified divorce” with Somaliland in order to preserve socio-economic ties between these two states for the betterment of their people. Regrettably, the furious reaction to this move suggests that nothing of the sort is being considered, but hopefully Somalia keeps its response within the political realm and accepts a “cold peace” instead of waging war.
- What are your views on Ethiopia’s relations with its neighbor?
Bilateral relations are perceived differently by their people, especially depending on the historical period, but Ethiopia under Prime Minister Dr. Abiy Ahmed has sincerely done its utmost to treat Somalia with respect as an equal partner with whom mutually beneficial cooperation is a priority. His decision to recognize Somaliland wasn’t taken lightly nor rashly, but was the result of deep calculations between him and his government over how best to resolve their country’s landlocked dilemma.
Had any of its universally recognized neighbors accepted his proposal to swap commercial-military port rights for stakes in national companies, then it’s unlikely that he’d have made the move to recognize Somaliland, but this emerged as the only realistic chance to achieve his goal after the others declined it. PM Abiy explained during a speech to lawmakers last fall why he wanted to resolve their country’s landlocked dilemma as soon as possible instead of risking it leading to problems for the next generation.
Left unaddressed, financial challenges and demographic trends could have converged into a political crisis with security implications that risked destabilizing the region as well, hence the importance of responsibly addressing this as soon as possible. After deliberating the pros and cons of this latest move, PM Abiy and his team concluded it was better than doing nothing at all in spite of the costs that this could have on bilateral ties with Somalia, having justified this by the greater good that was explained.
- What’s the geopolitical and geo-economic significance of the land?
Somaliland is located astride one of the world’s most important shipping lanes, which gives Ethiopia highly strategic access to the sea. This will in turn facilitate its global trade, thus leading to faster and more robust growth with time presuming that the terms of this deal are better than the one with Djibouti. It’ll also enable Ethiopia to finally defend the maritime logistics (particularly fertilizer and fuel) upon which its economic and therefore political stability depends after the navy’s reconstruction.
The second point is extremely significant since these same logistics have been left undefended since Eritrea’s independence in 1993 cut off Ethiopia’s direct access to the sea. This state of strategic affairs over the past three decades left Ethiopia in a super vulnerable position, which has been highlighted by the increasing militarization of the Red Sea. Other countries unofficially control the maritime logistics upon which Ethiopia’s economic and political stability depends, which is a major security threat.
Leaving the fate of its 120 million people to the mercy of foreign state and non-state actors would be very irresponsible since one of them might wager that it’s worth blackmailing Ethiopia through these means in order to extract strategic concessions under pain of imposing a blockade. The consequences of that worst-case scenario would reverberate throughout the entire Horn, which is why it’s in the region’s objective interests to support the reconstruction of the Ethiopian Navy in order to defend these logistics.