Although it difficult to discern what is in the agenda of the two sides, yet let us try to dig out and anticipate what could be in their agendas and you be the judge. May be I am wrong and there is no agenda as the Somaliland Vice President is not aware of any agenda of his government.

Mr. Somalia:

Helo Mr. Somaliland and how are you today brother. We are glad that you have finally realized that there is no other way other than talking to us. It is our problem and we are the only people who can solve it. You went to almost every country on earth to ask for separation but to no avail. Now you realized the buck stop at Mogadishu and nowhere else. You learned the hard way. We waited for this meeting for more than twenty years. Congratulations you have come to your sense…better late than never.

Mr.Somaliland;

Don’t you call me brother, because if you were my brother you wouldn’t have done what you did to me.

Mr. Somalia:

What did I do to you? Frankly I have no idea of what you are talking about. You never seize to amaze me. You are our brothers and we love you and we will never do anything to hurt you. Is it by design that you sent Godane, Afghani, Furur and the whole killer group to take revenge from us? These killer machines have killed more innocent people in one month than Siad Bare did in his life time and we are not accusing you of killing us. Let us put the blame where it belongs.

Mr. Somaliland:

You know perfectly what you have done to us. To tell you the truth, we will never forgive you for the crimes committed against our people. We will be stupid if are bitten from the same hole twice.

Mr. Somalia:

On the contrary we thought we committed crimes against our people not against you. I hope you don’t mean crimes committed by Siyad Bare Regime are ours. He did the same thing to us. But together we fought him and got rid of him. We had the impression that we were fighting on the same side and we thought we deserve to congratulate ourselves and work together so that we don’t ever face a similar situation again.

Mr. Somaliland:

It is true that we got rid of the terror with your supporting role. But it is us who took the brunt of the war. The crimes committed in Somaliland were rightly committed by your people even if it was not you directly. You have to be courageous and accept the responsibility of all the acts of genocide committed by what used to be Somalia. I don’t want to be hurt again.

Mr. Somalia:

We are extremely sorry about what the Siyad Regime did to you. But what surprises me is the way you single out yourself with all the atrocities of Siad Regime. I don’t believe in collective punishment too. We must be strong and forget about what happened and let us together build a better future for our kids so that they don’t suffer as much as we did. Let us make a strong foundation for a better tomorrow. We have wasted 21 precious years. We need each other. We are one nation under One God.

Mr. Somaliland:

If you are honest about that, let us part our ways and support one another. We will be the best of friends if you do that. Remember my friends we were two different countries before we were united. We had two different colonial systems incongruent to one other. So we were one country with two different systems. We overwhelmingly rejected the referendum of the constitution in 1961. We were ruled by a constitution we rejected. That could only mean the union has never legally taken place.

Mr. Somalia:

We are tired of your being a British colony. Somalis had no boundary before we were divided and colonized by foreign powers against our wishes. Your best excuse for secession is based on an arbitrary boundary made by the hideous colonizers. For heaven’s sake stop eulogizing the British. Let bygones be bygones and let us talk about something more substantive than that today, let us be just Somalis without being British for a change. Even the British you adore so much refused to recognize you because when they left, they left Somalia behind not Somaliland. The British themselves wiped the word Somaliland from the face of the earth.

Mr. Somaliland:

There is not much to talk about today. We came only to improve our relationship. We are two neighboring brotherly countries. You may think we came here to secede from you, but we did that 21 years ago. Secession is a fait accompli and is not open to discussion. In fact secession is a misnomer; there was no government to secede from then. Independence bounced back to us like a boomerang and we will never let it go again.

Mr. Somalia:

That is a big relief for me my friend. We assure you most emphatically that we are on the verge of putting our act together with the help of well wishers and as soon as that is done, our relationship will automatically improve then. You must do your part though. Of late we heard that you are sliding into some sort of anarchy while in contrast we are fast improving. A military Court in Hargeisa has found 17 civilians guilty and sentenced them to death in less than 24 hours. Civilians, Military Court and one day death sentences, smell more than Gelle’s kangaroo Courts in Siad Bare times. Your democracy may be prematurely aging and that could be the beginning of the end. If you were better than us, it may not be for long. We know what anarchy means and we will support you and will not despise you, as you did. We believe what is good for you is good for us.

Mr. Somaliland:

Are you able to undertaken any serious discussion about the fate of our two neighboring countries? We are aware that your government will not last more than two months.

Mr. Somalia:

We are the government for now and whatever we decide will be binding on the future Somali government. But are you sure you represent or speak for all the people of Somaliland. We hear opposition and dissatisfaction all over Somaliland about your meeting with us. If you are a democracy, as you say, I am sure you will be worried about that. On the other hand, if you idolize secession, like tribes, it will be open ended. It will not stop anywhere. Secession here and there on continual basis and you have no moral standing to oppose one over the other. So if I were you, I will not open a Pandora box; you never know what will come out of it. You complain that your elder statesmen made a mistake in 1960. That is an insult to the wisdom of those who fought for your independence and unity. By definition unity is not a mistake, secession and separation are.

Mr. Somaliland:

Don’t you worry about that, we are a democracy and in a democracy there is always dissent and dissatisfaction. It is part and parcel of the whole package of the democracy we have chosen. As far as the so called Pandora box is concerned, we opened it only once and we collectively closed it. From your question, however I understand that democracy is an alien concept to you. But we lived it for the last twenty years. This is one more reason why we are different and should call it quits.

Mr. Somalia:

I beg to differ with you on this. We are here to capitalize on our commonalities not to dwell upon our differences. It is about time we set the record straight, if you don’t like us, it is up-to you, but you will not get our support then. You will be on your own. I have the feeling that you have missed a lot of golden opportunities before. Don’t you miss this last opportunity too; it will be catastrophic on your future. I honestly believe we should come to some sort of an agreement before a new democratically elected government is in place, for a democracy cannot afford to sit with secessionists. So it is now or never.

Mr. Somaliland:

To tell you the truth we like to deal with a democratically elected government who has its people’s mandate than a group of individuals who will not last more than two months. Precisely that is why we waited for 21 years, because we couldn’t know who to talk to.

Mr. Somalia:

That is where you go wrong again. Somalia had a President at all times, weak one though and it was easier for you to deal with a weak president than a strong democratically elected President. I am sure you will rue it, if you don’t deal with us now. After two months the curtain will be closed on secession. This is the overtime. Let us decide now before it is too late on a loose federation where you manage all your business in your own unique ways.

What is your agenda for this meeting anyway? Your Vice President says he has no idea about your agenda. He adds, “They (committee) will decide something there”. That means, as a government you have never prepared a national agenda and you have a blank cheque with you; don’t you waste it then. We are convinced that Silanyo’s government has changed course for the better and we are responding to that with great anticipation. Silanyo has spent the better part of his adult life in Mogadishu unlike his predecessor who has not even seen Mogadishu. So my friends, welcome to the club again we are sure, united we will stand, divided we will continue to fall.

Mr. Somaliland:

We have seen unity, but all we saw was death, destruction and more than 40 years of retardation. Now we know better than emotional nationalism, unity and the like. So my friends let us go to business. The first order of business will be respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of our respective governments. Consider Khatumo, Awdal and the like as internal Somaliland problems. This should be the essence of our deliberation here in this eventful meeting.

Mr. Somalia:

Hold your horses my friends; let us put our feet on the ground. You have not seceded when you are in the TFG as much as I am. When you are in the Federal Parliament as much as I am; When the Head of Judiciary is from Somaliland. Even in this delegation of ours we have a Somalilander and above all you travel with Somalia passport. If those said people were working with an alien State you should have at least taken away their citizenship from them. Now your best pet is to say we want to secede; not we have already seceded. No government with its right mind have the authority to issue an order of secession, but it can with the help of the legislator order a plebiscite to be taken to test the wishes of the whole or part of its country. My friends, you say something and you do something else. Are we all confused; you said you were better.

[email protected]