Thread by @YahyeSL

The illegal union between British #Somaliland and Italian #Somalia.

A THREAD

1/12. A pan-Somali dream to step-over colonial borders separating the 5 Somali inhabited territories (Djibouti, NFD, Ogaden region) has brought Somaliland and Somalia together but was the union legal?

2/12. Protectorate Somaliland achieved its independence on June 26, 1960 and received international recognition from 35 countries such as #China, #Egypt, #Ethiopia, #France, #Ghana, #Israel, and #theSovietUnion. There were numerous congratulatory messages notably from #USA.

3/12. The independence of Somalia was guided by the Italian Trusteeship Administration. On April 1960, officials from protectorate Somaliland and trusteeship Somalia met to create the illusion of the so called ‘Somali’ dream and on July 1, 1960, joined to form the United Republic

4/12. To add to the looming obstacles, the legal system, administrative language, education, and governance systems used were different. In terms of the people, there has been little trade, travel or cultural contact between the two countries in the prior to the 1960 Independence

5/12. On the 27 of June 1960, S/land parliament passed a law to unite the two countries. The representative from Somalia have failed to sign the “Union of Somaliland and Somalia Law” Contrarily, Somalia legislators passed significantly different document entitled “Atto di Unione”

6/12. S/land parliament were not aware of the act of Union which favoured Somalia and removed many elements proposed by S/land. The Act of Union has not been signed by S/land reps. Somali Republic government requested to compare both act of union drafts but that did not happen.

7/12. The Somali republic’s constitution required the act of union to be signed before a provisional President is elected, however without Act of union being signed, a provisional president was elected (illegally, contrary to the constitution) who formalised the act of union.

8/12. The Act of union was never presented to the assembly as the illegally elected provisional president formalised it by issuing a decree. The president’s decree to formalise the act of union was illegal, The new Somali Republic was thus declared with no legal basis in place.

9/12. On the 31st of January 1961, an attempt was made to solve the fundamental legal limbo and introduce a new Act of Union which has been repealed by the new Somali republic assembly, however the Assembly did not have jurisdiction in Somaliland to repeal anything.

10/12. The Somali Republic assembly was dominated by the south and the assembly called for a referendum. The aim of the referendum in June 1961 was to address illegality of the union with a YES/No vote from both Somaliland and Somalia but this did not happen as planned.

11/12. Only 100k ballots were casted in S/land (63% voted against). Somalia’s 1.7m ballots were 3x more than estimated number of eligible voters, indicating serious irregularities. A remote village (Adan Yabal) with no more than 1k residents produced cast votes equal to S/land.

12/12. The illegal union was buried when a group of S/land military officers were tried at Mogadishu Supreme Court for charges of Treason. The accused were all discharged since the court had no jurisdiction in S/land and there was no ‘Act of Union’ between Somaliland and Somalia

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