LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Somaliland: British Somaliland
built 640 days ago
In the world-wide wave of anti-colonial sentiment that followed the Second World War, the “wind of change” was blowing as strongly in Somaliland as elsewhere in Africa, and the British undertook to prepare their protectorate for existence as an independent state. In the few years that remained to complete the task, their neglect of the territory became dismally obvious. On independence day, June 26 1960, Somaliland possessed only a handful of university graduates and a single secondary school. Not a single sealed road linked the major towns. The principal natural resource of the territory was its livestock, and an industrial base was non-existent. Nevertheless, in its newfound freedom, Somaliland greeted these challenges with optimism - even euphoria.
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Somaliland was one of the last parts of Africa to be explored by Europeans. The occupation of Aden by the British in 183 9 proved the starting-point in the opening up of the country, Aden being the chief port with which the Somali of the opposite coast traded. The task of mapping the coast was largely undertaken by officers of the Indian navy, while the first explorers of the interior were officers of the Indian army quartered at Aden - Lieut. Cruttenden (1848), Lieut. (afterwards Captain Sir Richard) Burton, and Lieut. J. H. Speke (the discoverer of the Nile source).
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![[1996 Somaliland flag]](http://retrieverimages.lycos.com/images/s/o/m/somaliland/i/009.gif)
The new flag of Somaliland, the former British part of Somalia which declared its independence some years ago, is three equal horizontal stripes of green-white-red. On the green stripe is the "shahada" in white script, exactly like in the flag of Saudi Arabia. The white strip contains a black five pointed star. On the bitmap the flag is 175 pixels high and 305 pixels long, so if these are the real proportions it's approx. 3:5.
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For most of the period of British rule in Somaliland, very little political activity was either permitted or encouraged. The colonial authorities exercised control through a system of indirect rule that relied upon traditional leadership structures. Only in the two decades prior to independence did the British foster any meaningful indigenous political development. The small, educated civil service elite, which adopted British administrative discipline and work ethics... inherited - to an extent - a reluctance to involve itself directly in politics. Thus as Somaliland braced itself for independence in 1960, it was equipped with a relatively strong civil service, adequate both in quality and in quantity, but was almost entirely lacking in political cadre.
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Known as the Somaliland Protectorate during almost 80 years of British rule, the Republic of Somaliland gained independence from Britain on June 26, 1960. On July 1, 1960, it joined the former Italian Somalia to form the Somali Republic. Civil war broke out in the 1980s, which led eventually to the collapse of the Somali Republic. In 1991, the people of Somaliland held a congress, during which it decided to withdraw from the union with Somalia and to reinstate Somaliland's sovereignty.
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Having declared its independence from Somalia in 1991, following the fall of dictator Siad Barre, Somaliland lays claim to the territory comprised by the former British Somaliland, which includes the Sool region. Hargeisa lost control of Sool and Los Anod in 2003, when forces from Puntland successfully occupied the region based on clan affiliations with its population. Since then, Hargeisa has been planning to regain its foothold at an opportune moment, and now it perceives that it has found one.
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British Somaliland