Africa’s best kept secret

Legend also says the myrrh that Balthasar, the Ethiopian King, one of the Magi, brought to baby Jesus was probably imported from the Golis Mountains of Somaliland where myrrh still grows and is exported to neighbouring Ethiopia and abroad.

Somaliland was the first of five Somali territories to emerge from foreign domination. The other four were the French Somali Coast, present Djibouti; Italian Somalia; and the two Somali regions each in Ethiopia and Kenya, historically known as the Reserved Area and Northern Frontier Districts respectively.

When it became independent in 1960, 34 members of the United Nations recognised Somaliland. It, however, ceased to exist as a sovereign state after the union with Italian Somali and had to wait for another 30 years to reclaim its independence. This was after a decade of a civil war, during which Somaliland towns were razed to the ground and almost the whole population fled to neighbouring countries.

Since then, the Somaliland people have devised a bottom-up reconciliation process, restored peace and stability and successfully held internationally-observed, municipal, presidential and parliamentary elections. As the country celebrates its 15th independence anniversary, it boasts its own national flag, currency, national army and police force, a bicameral parliament, executive bodies of government, an unbridled free press, a developing educational system including a number of universities and an improving health system.

It also has a burgeoning private sector doing a booming business with Dubai, despite the economic hardships brought on by what the people believe is a politically motivated Saudi Arabian ban on Somaliland livestock exports and which is the country's prime source of hard currency.

Somaliland's capital, Hargeisa, and other major towns, have no shortage of world-class hotels with all the amenities of luxury and recreation.

The question nevertheless, that foreign visitors to Somaliland often raise, is why no one hears about the positive story of Somaliland, why the world is inundated with stories of internecine bloodshed and anarchy in Mogadishu, and why Somaliland is not recognised?

The answer comes from Somaliland's astute foreign minister Edna Ismail, the only woman foreign minister in East Africa, who said in an interview:

We are paying a heavy price for being peaceful: there are no bodies of dead marines being dragged through the streets of Somaliland like there were in Mogadishu. There are no international troops to keep peace in Somaliland. We maintain our demobilisation and our peace ourselves. There are no foreigners kidnapped or no hijacks. Nothing sensational happens. It is just a very dull country that is getting on with its daily life, rebuilding.

In a nutshell, a country has to have bloodshed in its streets in order to be "mediagenic" and Somaliland, an oasis of peace, definitely refuses to fight for international headlines at the expense of its dull but hard won tranquillity.