LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Somaliland
built 628 days ago
One reason for Somaliland’s optimism was the relative prosperity it enjoyed in the decade prior independence. During the 1950s, the Arabian oil boom generated an unprecedented demand for Somali livestock. The central towns of Hargeysa, Berbera, and Burco became the hubs of that trade, forming a triangle that would eventually become the core of economic development in the region. During the same period, in the Hawd region, the colonial authorities (in the person of engineer Jack Laurence5) built a chain of earth dams along the Ethiopian border to collect run-off water. These man-made depressions prolonged the period nomads could graze their livestock in the Hawd, and ... changed the face of the land forever. Permanent settlements began to appear, raising surplus livestock for export to Arabia through the markets of Somaliland’s central economic hub.
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Somaliland is a nation of displaced people, now returnees, and each person has experienced loss. In 1981, a group of prominent professionals in Hargeisa started a self-help scheme to improve the hospital and schools. Eventually, the group -- named ufo or “wind” -- started an underground newspaper and the Barre government arrested them and sentenced many to death. The severity of the verdict provoked student riots in Hargeisa, which the government quashed with tanks. When the prisoners were suddenly released from solitary confinement in 1989, they had no idea of what had befallen their country. It was Barre himself who “briefed” the freed prisoners on the bombing of Hargeisa, the deaths of 50,000 civilians and the refugee camps -- and then blamed them for all of it. One doctor related how he could not even comprehend what he heard until he met family who informed him of his father and brother’s deaths.
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Against all odds Somaliland and its people have successful managed to overcome the destruction carried out by the military dictatorship. Now Somaliland is a country of peace, freedom, equality and enterprise. As far as 15th August 2000 The Financial Times reported, “ It (Somaliland) could serve as a model for Africa: peaceful, stable, little crime, no debt, a liberal economic regime as of this month, a multi-part electoral system”.
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Somaliland has no stamina for a war. And what is the value victory in the front that is translated to a disaster at the level of international diplomacy? War with Puntland will cause Chaos in Somaliland itself.
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Somaliland conducted a referendum on May 31, 2001, which endorsed a new constitution and reaffirmed its status as an independent state. The referendum offers some useful insights on the thinking of Somalilanders on the issue of independence. The Initiative and Referendum Institute, an international non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., sent a 10-member team to observe the referendum process from May 28 until June 7. Eight of the delegates were from the United States, one from the United Kingdom, and one from Switzerland. The Institute acknowledged that its ability to observe the referendum was imperfect. On the day of the referendum, it was only able to visit 57 of the 600 polling stations in five of Somaliland's six regions.
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Police in the self-declared independent state of Somaliland, northwestern Somalia, have seized a consignment of cigarettes, the pro-Somaliland administration newspaper 'Mandeeq' reported on 8 September. The consignment, consisting of 132 crates of Benson and Hedges cigarettes reportedly originated from the port city of Bosaso in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland, northeastern Somalia, a local source told IRIN on Tuesday. There were various versions of who owned the consignment, but no one had so far claimed ownership, the source said. 'Mandeeq'... noted that the cigarettes were the same brand as those that a Djibouti businessman used to bring into the country. These were previously supplied to Somaliland by a Djibouti businessman, Abdulrahman Bore.
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