HornDiplomat Editorial
HornDiplomat-Armed conflict broke out between Somaliland and puntland troops at Booda-cad, Dahar east of Sanaag Monday 18th July, 2016. The clashes coincided with the voter registration that was officially launched in the region on Saturday 16.
Troops loyal to the Somali semi-autonomous region of Puntland launched an attack to the Somaliland army stationed in the area but the somaliland army repelled and sustained heavy loss to the attackers.Somaliland army fought back Puntland Attack
More than 10 hostages including Puntland Mps fell into the hands of the Somaliland troops according the Somaliland officials. ‘They have attacked our national army and we defeated them’’. Said the Somaliland minister of defense.
Since the kick-off of the voter registration in the region, the Puntland administration was trying to disrupt it. Pro –Puntland officials were speaking tough language to Somaliland and vowing to destroy the voter registration equipment and kill the voter registration staff. A plot to show the international community that the people in the region are against the sovereignty of Somaliland, but such activity which is to prevent the people from exercising their universal right of casting their votes is an act of criminal.
From past to present, the Eastern Sanag and Sool are parts of the Republic Somaliland. They fall in the border of the Somaliland British Protectorate currently the Republic of somaliland. The people in these two regions fought for the Somaliland independence of 1960 and participated in 1991 Bur’o Conference that its participants fully endorsed the declaration of the independence of Somaliland and its sovereignty.
Somaliland unilaterally united with Somalia in July 1960 in a bid to form Greater Somalia and unilaterally withdrew from that union in 1991.Somaliland is unlike Somalia, it is a peaceful and democratic state that holds free and fair elections.
Regrettably Puntland claims parts of the Eastern Sanag on clan basis since 1998 and this is the core of the problem in the region.
SOURCE:HORNDIPLOMAT
