“While the secessionists in Jubaland have continued to contest their rights to secede amid enduring opposition from Mogadishu, today, both Somaliland and Puntland are in fact independent states. Neither the African Union (AU) nor the United Nations (UN) have so far formally granted the crucial recognition desperately sought by each of the secessionist enclaves. The main problem is that the majority of member nations at both the AU and UN (including veto-holding China, one of the few remaining land empires) are stoutly indifferent to the idea of secession for fear that similar political demands could materialize and affect politics within their own borders.1 Despite the international opposition, ironically Somaliland has earned a good repute among its local and international observers as being under a more effective government than the other regions of the country, including the decimated and hapless Transitional Government based in Mogadishu. This is regardless of Somaliland’s extreme condition of poverty.2 An AU mission that visited the separatist northern territory in 2006 raised the hope of recognition of Somaliland, but the favorable report of that mission was not followed through on by the AU’s governing Heads of States. The AU “refused to recognize Somaliland’s independence, citing the maxim that there would be chaos if colonial boundaries were not observed.”