Mogadishu (PP Editorial) —President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud tonight signed into legislation the invoice repealing the Memorandum of Understanding signed by Somaliland Administration and the Federal Republic of Ethiopia. The declare made Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi that President Mohamud had been conscious of the MoU has necessitated the passage of the invoice by the bicameral legislature on 2 January 2023.
Whereas the repealing of the MoU is commendable it creates extra dangers so long as the defence pact signed by the Somali Defence Minister along with his Ethiopian counterpart on December 7, 2023 stands. “Maritime safety” is without doubt one of the areas of cooperation cited by the Ethiopian authorities to defend its resolution to signal a MoU via which Somaliland administration will lease 20 km costal district to Ethiopia for a naval base. Did the Federal Authorities of Somalia assume that there’s a maritime border between Somalia and Ethiopia? It may be argued that, just like the 2009 MoU Somalia signed with Kenya, the defence pact supplied Somalia with a nefarious alternative to sleepwalk into maritime dispute with landlocked Ethiopia.
It’s unclear how the Federal Authorities of Somalia might tackle ambiguities and uncertainties created by the earlier agreements it signed with Somaliland Administration whose President interprets the financial growth clauses of the settlement as a inexperienced gentle to enter agreements with sovereign nations such Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates. Different authorized minefields delivered to gentle by the invoice signed by President Mohamud into legislation is the article on the “freedom of motion” included into the 2020 settlement between the Federal Authorities of Somalia and Somaliland Administration signed in Djibouti. President Muse Bihi Abdi invoked that settlement when, 2021, his forces displaced greater than 1,700 Somalis in Laascaanood underneath the pretext that “they’re foreigners”.
The Federal Authorities of Somalia has for a very long time indulged the secessionist and rejectionist claims of Somaliland administration to a degree that Hargeisa needed to resort to actions reminiscent of deportation of Somali residents and the tried leasing of a coastal district to Ethiopia in violation of the territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Somalia.
© Puntland Submit, 2024
