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Bougainville moved a step closer to becoming an independent nation on Wednesday (Dec 11) after results from a referendum showed an overwhelming majority want the province to cut its ties with Papua New Guinea.
More than 176,000 of the 181,000 voters who participated in the two-week referendum that concluded on Dec 6 supported independence, with about 3,000 choosing greater autonomy under Papua New Guinea, the Bougainville Referendum Commission said.
The Pacific people of Bougainville will on Saturday begin voting in a referendum to decide if they want to become the world’s newest nation by gaining independence from Papua New Guinea.
The referendum will run over two weeks and is a key part of a 2001 peace agreement that ended a civil war in which at least 15,000 people died in the cluster of islands to the east of the Papua New Guinea mainland.
To most, a functionally independent country that lies in the northern part of modern Somalia with a separate government, education system, and even a coast guard would be something out of a fantasy novel. However, Somaliland, hidden on the Horn of Africa, is exactly that.
Its four million people declared independence in 1991—the second time they have done so since the colonial period—and have established a robust democracy that has seen peaceful transfers of power between political rivals in 2002 and 2010.
There are five nation states within the Somali nation, and their dream to reform a ‘Great Somalia’, under one flag, government and institution has deceased and will not be revived again.
In 1960, two Somali nation states gained independence from British and Italian colonisation, they united under one government to form Great Somalia. It was a reactionary and emotional unification that lacked any concrete basis of justice and diplomacy.
Somalia has cut diplomatic relations with Guinea after the head of the self-proclaimed Republic of Somaliland visited the West African country, the foreign ministry in Mogadishu has said.
Somaliland declared its independence in 1991 but is not recognised by the international community, which considers it an autonomous region of Somalia.
The name dispute between Greece and Macedonia has been souring bilateral relations for years, with Athens opposing the use of “Macedonia,” which is also the name of a region in Greece, Trend reports citing Sputnik.
Debates on the new legislation started on Wednesday and continued through Thursday. The final vote was postponed several times due to the lack of the 80 votes needed for the amendments to pass.
The self-declared republic of Somaliland has expressed an interest in hosting British and Russian naval bases, which would add to an already active military presence along the coast of the Red Sea – one of the world’s busiest and most strategically important maritime passages.
Last weekend, British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson paid an unannounced visit to Somaliland and met with President Muse Bihi Abdi, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Yasin Hagi Mohamoud, and Defense Minister Essa Ahmed as well as Nuh Ismail Tani, top army general.