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| Last Updated: Apr 3, 2012 - 2:47:55 AM |
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Somaliland’s parliament votes to attend Somalia conference in London
5 Feb 5, 2012 - 12:28:30 PM
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HARGEISA, Somalia Feb 5, 2012 (Garowe Online) – The two houses of parliament in Somalia’s separatist region of Somaliland have voted overwhelmingly voted in favor of the Somaliland, Radio Garowe reports.
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| Somaliland leader Ahmed Silanyo at parliament in Hargeisa |
The joint parliamentary session was held Sunday in Somaliland’s capital of Hargeisa and attended by 109 MPs from the elected House of Representatives and the nominated House of Elders (Guurti). The session, chaired by the Speaker Abdirahman Mohamed Irro of Somaliland’s House of Representatives, discussed two major issues: Somaliland’s attendance at the London conference and revision to a Somaliland law which prohibited participation at Somalia conferences.
Somaliland Foreign Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Omar addressed the joint session of parliament and argued strongly in favor of Somaliland’s attendance at the upcoming International Conference on Somalia, hosted by the UK Government in London on 23 February 2012, where UK officials expect the attendance of world leaders and diplomats from over 50 countries.
Speaker Irro told the parliamentarians that Somaliland President Ahmed Mohamed Silanyo addressed parliament earlier. “Today you have heard the Foreign Minister expressed that the administration has engaged in wide consultation regarding the London conference,” said the Speaker.
Continuing, Speaker Irro said: “There are two issues here: one issue is a prior law banning Somaliland participation at Somalia conferences, as it has become vitally important that we protect our statehood while simultaneously protecting our interests, and so there is a proposal to amend that law as the administration finds our Somaliland’s interest in attending the London conference on Somalia.”
The Somaliland MPs from both houses of parliament voted thereafter, with 101 MPs voting in favor of Somaliland’s attendance at the London conference, while 3 MPs rejected and 4 MPs abstained, and the Speaker did not vote. The law passed in favor of Somaliland’s attendance at the London conference on Somalia, parliamentary leaders declared.
Independent sources in Hargeisa tell Garowe Online that the parliament hall was loud and rowdy during the deliberations, with one legislator named MP Mohamed Farah Qabile storming out of the hall in anger.
Sunday’s vote by the houses of parliament in Somaliland favoring the separatist region’s attendance at the London conference marks a major shift in policy for the separatist region, which has deliberately stayed away from the more than 15 Somalia peace conferences held in capitals like Cairo, Addis Ababa, Djibouti, Nairobi, and soon London.
It is not clear what brought this major shift in policy in Somaliland, but the change comes at a momentous time in Somalia’s recent history with African peacekeepers and neighboring countries’ armies seizing control of land from Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Shabaab terrorist group in south-central Somalia.
Political analysts say international pressure, particularly by the UK government, played a key role in influencing politics in Somaliland, a former British protectorate. Last month, Somaliland forces faced a resounding military defeat after a failed invasion of Buhodle town, a failed military operation that exposed Somaliland’s clan politics and its stretched military might.
Somaliland, located in northwestern Somalia, unilaterally declared independence from the rest of the country in 1991 but has not been recognized internationally.
GAROWE ONLINE
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