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1. Recent History of Somaliland
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Colonial Period
Somaliland was declared a British protectorate in 1886 and despite popular revolt from 1899 to 1920 and a brief occupation of the protectorate by Italian troops in 1940-41, the British maintained colonial rule until 1960. British interests in Somaliland lay mainly in the strategic position of its coastline as a trading point, and they invested very little in physical or social infrastructure, leaving Somaliland with just one secondary school at independence. However, in contrast to Italian rule in south-central Somalia, where patronage and violence undermined Somali social organisation, the British system of indirect governance favoured administration through existing clan authorities. British absence reinforced a relatively cohesive traditional authority in Somaliland.
Post-colonial period
Somaliland declared independence on 26 June 1960 and was immediately recognised by thirty-five states, but just five days later on 1 July, Somaliland voluntarily united with Italian Somalia to become the Republic of Somalia. However, the north was soon neglected in favour of central government priorities, causing local resentment.
President Siad Barre’s regime (1969-1991) ruled through patronage based on weak alliances, and as Somaliland was considered strategically important, the region was politically sidelined and subject to early efforts at ‘clan cleansing.’ When war broke out between Somalia and Ethiopia in 1977, a disproportionate concentration of casualties amongst north-west troops fuelled further resentment in the northern region.
Between 1969 and 1978 the Barre regime exercised significant control over Somalia’s national territory, and in much of the Republic local patrons of the regime used violence to control economic opportunities. However, while Barre’s divide and rule tactics fractured south-central Somalia (his early favourites would emerge as competing militia leaders in the early 1990s), in north-west Somalia exclusion and repression by the central government reinforced the legitimacy of alternative forms of local governance. Throughout the 1980s, clan authorities developed strong social and economic ties with the Somaliland population.
By the 1980s, the central Somali government was dependent on external sources of revenue and was pacifying rivals with aid handouts, to growing popular unrest. Several rebel movements formed. In London, frustrated Diaspora intellectuals affiliated to the Isaaq Somaliland clan established the Somali National Movement (SNM).
The Somali National Movement operated from neighbouring Ethiopia. However, in 1988, after a Somali agreement with Ethiopia threatened their bases, SNM rebels dramatically escalated their operations Somaliland. The central government reacted with a brutal bombing campaign, intensifying hostility in the region.
The regional capital Hargeisa was near-destroyed, an estimated 50,000 people were killed, and a further half a million displaced.
When Barre fell in 1991, along with the country’s political, economic and administrative institutions and any semblance of central government, the Somali National Movement was the largest power in the north. On 18 May 1991, the SNM revoked the 1960 Act of Union, and declared Somaliland independent. No country has officially recognised its statehood.