Mogadishu (PP Editorial) —President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud tonight signed into law the bill repealing the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Somaliland Administration and the Federal Republic of Ethiopia. The claim made Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi that President Mohamud had been aware of the MoU has necessitated the passage of the bill by the bicameral legislature on 2 January 2023.
While the repealing of the MoU is commendable it creates more risks as long as the defence pact signed by the Somali Defence Minister with his Ethiopian counterpart on December 7, 2023 stands. “Maritime security” is one of the areas of cooperation cited by the Ethiopian government to defend its decision to sign a MoU through which Somaliland administration will lease 20 km costal district to Ethiopia for a naval base. Did the Federal Government of Somalia assume that there is a maritime border between Somalia and Ethiopia? It can be argued that, like the 2009 MoU Somalia signed with Kenya, the defence pact provided Somalia with a nefarious opportunity to sleepwalk into maritime dispute with landlocked Ethiopia.
It is unclear how the Federal Government of Somalia could address ambiguities and uncertainties created by the previous agreements it signed with Somaliland Administration whose President interprets the economic development clauses of the agreement as a green light to enter agreements with sovereign countries such Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates. Other legal minefields brought to light by the bill signed by President Mohamud into law is the article on the “freedom of movement” incorporated into the 2020 agreement between the Federal Government of Somalia and Somaliland Administration signed in Djibouti. President Muse Bihi Abdi invoked that agreement when, 2021, his forces displaced more than 1,700 Somalis in Laascaanood under the pretext that “they are foreigners”.
The Federal Government of Somalia has for a long time indulged the secessionist and rejectionist claims of Somaliland administration to a point that Hargeisa had to resort to actions such as deportation of Somali citizens and the attempted leasing of a coastal district to Ethiopia in violation of the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Somalia.
© Puntland Post, 2024
