Ethiopia has reportedly upgraded its consular office in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, to a fully-fledged embassy, a move which would not go down well in Mogadishu, Somalia which still lay claim to the enclave.
According to Somaliland’s information and culture minister Ali Mohamed Hassan on X formerly Twitter, the upgrading was announced by none other than the president Musa Bihi Abdi in a speech to the nation marking 33 years since the enclave’s declaration of independence from Somalia rocked by a devastating civil war at the time.
It comes barely a week after Ethiopian president Sahelework Zewdie appointed Delil Kedir Bushra as Ethiopia’s envoy to Somaliland which internationally is still regarded as a de jure part of Somalia.
Mogadishu which claims the self-declared republic of Somaliland as its sovereign territory, had repeatedly warned Ethiopia against meddling in the affairs of the enclave of just over 6 million inhabitants.
Somaliland with its own currency is not recognised by the United Nations and the rest of the world as an independent country.
Although there is no official statement from Addis Ababa confirming the upgrading of its consulate in Hargeisa, Ethiopia’s intention in Somaliland will be put under greater scrutiny and criticism by Somalia which has been rallying support from some of its neighbours like Egypt, Eritrea and Sudan.
Some of these nations have been at odds with Ethiopia for its controversial dam being built over the Nile, Africa’s longest river.
In recent years, landlocked Ethiopia had not hidden its trade-driven ambition to gain unfettered access to ports in the region to enhance its commercial link with the rest of the world which the independence of Eritrea in the early 1990s had stifled.
Ethiopia under prime minister Abiy Ahmed had vowed to regain such access for the furtherance of its trading interest.
A January 1, 2024 memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Somaliland was aimed at fixing this long-running aberration by allowing Ethiopian access to the Red Sea in exchange for recognising the enclave as a country accorded full diplomatic status
Aside from access to the Gulf of Aden the controversial agreement also allows Ethiopia to establish a military base in Lughaya inside Somaliland.
Somalia was quick to denounce this as an unlawful Ethiopian encroachment on its territory which represents a blatant breach of international law on the territorial sovereignty of a neighbouring country.
Somaliland on the other hand claimed the MoU upholds the territorial integrity of all nations involved and fosters peaceful cohabitation and regional collaboration.
Admist simmering tension, Somalia recalled its ambassador to Addis Ababa as Ethiopia’s own envoy also left Mogadishu, prompting the African Union to urge restraint.
Most observers say although such tensions may not necessarily trigger open hostilities between the two countries, it may divide the Horn of Africa region and undo much of what had been gained from integrating a region torn by conflicts.
Both countries are not in the right shape to start and prosecute military hostilities between them after years of internecine conflicts internally.
The Ethiopian military has been literally spent fighting its own war against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and Amhara insurgents for the past four years and may not want to be preoccupied with another conflict which would stretch its human and material resources even further.
It is one of five East African countries contributing troops to the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) and has just months to go before the withdrawal of the peacekeepers from the country by the end of the year.
Ethiopia’s equally war-weary neighbour is slowly emerging from over three decades of instability, and had signalled this non-belligerent posture by attempts to involve the United Nations in finding a diplomatic solution to stop the ‘encroachment’ into Somaliland.
Observers say, the biggest winners of this diplomatic crisis between Ethiopia and Somalia may be Al-Shabaab who may seize the opportunity presented by the situation to play one side against the other and drag the whole region into further instability.
”This whole situation regarding Ethiopia and Somalia about Somaliland is like stirring a hornet’s nest and damning the consequences” said one observer.
