The Country That Does Not Exist: A History of Somaliland

Description

The Somali people are fiercely nationalistic. Colonialism split them into five segments divided between four different powers. Thus decolonization and pan-Somalism became synonymous. In 1960 a partial reunification took place between British Somaliland and Somalia Italiana. Africa Confidential wrote at the time that the new Somali state would never be beset by tribal division but this discounted the existence of powerful clans within Somali society and the persistence of colonial administrative cultures. The collapse of parliamentary democracy in 1969 and the resulting army--and clanic--dictatorship that followed led to a civil war in the 'perfect' national state. It lasted fourteen years in the "British" North and is still raging today in the 'Italian' South. Somaliland "re-birthed" itself through an enormous solo effort but the viable nation so recreated within its former colonial borders was never internationally recognized and still struggles to exist economically and diplomatically. This book recounts an African success story where the peace so widely acclaimed by the international community has had no reward but its own lonely achievement. Cover Half-title Title Copyright Contents Preface 1. A Nation in Search of a State: The Somali Mystique of Unity 2. United We Fall: Somalia From Independence to Civil War 3. Founding and Fostering the Somali National Movement (SNM) 4. SNM: The Slow Growth of an Odd Guerrilla Force in the Hard-Edged Cold War Landscape 5. Cold War Recess: The Mogadishu–SNM Stand-Off in an Indifferent World, 1984–1988 6. And Suddenly All Hell Broke Loose, 1988 7. The Local War in the North Goes Global, 1989–1991 8. North and South Break up and Fight Among Themselves 9. Independence, Humanitarian Invasion and Sailing into the Unknown 10. Odd Man Out: Somaliland’s Fragile Peace on the Edge of Somalia’s War Without End 11. From Survival to Globalisation: What is the Need for a Nation-State in Somaliland? Notes Bibliography Index