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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   1347 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 4, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Ethiopia has been saber rattling lately to get sea access. The straight forward decision of invading Erithrea had its own mess. So they decided instead to piss off Somalia which is the forever failed state.

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2024/1/4/ambiguous-ethiopia-port-deal-fuels-uncertainty-over-somaliland-statehood

On Monday, an agreement signed in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and President Muse Bihi Abdi of the breakaway republic of Somaliland preceded a shocking announcement that has already set the tone for interstate relations in the Horn of Africa this year. The memorandum of understanding was for the leasing of 20km (12 miles) of Somaliland’s sea coast to landlocked Ethiopia. In exchange, Somaliland will receive shares in its neighbour’s flagship carrier, Ethiopian Airlines – and receive formal recognition as a sovereign state. International recognition has been a long-sought goal for Somaliland, a region in northern Somalia that has enjoyed de facto independence since 1991. But the groundbreaking agreement has created shockwaves in the region and fury in Somalia, which views it as a hostile violation of Somalia’s sovereignty.

There is precious little Somalia could do to prevent the deal and statehood of Somaliland (and I guess eventual Anschluss with Ethiopia), so I think that a potentially hot situation just got quite colder.

Given that Somaliland is one of tue few parts of Somalia that has its shit together, I can only welcome this. As far as I know, there's a generally accepted unsaid agreement between postcolonial African states that they don't challenge post-independence borders, which explains why no one has recognized Somaliland and Puntland yet, but Ethiopia isn't a postcolonial nation. Plus, there's the precedent of South Sudan.

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