After long periods of fighting for their independence from colonial empires, some newly-independent African states took on the mantra of neo-colonialism in denying aspiring ethnic groups their own statehood.

Perhaps the most egregious example of an aspirant nation denied its rightful status because of dictates from the African Union and outside powers in Washington, London, Paris, and Berlin is the Republic of Somaliland in the «Horn of Africa». Shortly after achieving independence from Britain in 1960 as the State of Somaliland, the nation formed what would prove to be a dysfunctional union with the Republic of Somalia, what was formerly the colony of Italian Somaliland.

One of Somaliland’s founding statesmen, Mohammed Ibrahim Egal, was not so keen on rushing into a union with Somalia. Egal wanted to wait for six months to firmly establish Somaliland’s government institutions, before rushing into a union with a nation where the predominant business language was Italian, not English, as was the case in Somaliland.

In 1969, the military junta of Mohammed Siad Barre, who hailed from the former Italian Somaliland and governed from the Somali capital of Mogadishu, began a brutal crackdown on the Isaaq people, the majority ethnic group of Somaliland.

In 1990, after Barre’s ouster, the former British Somaliland withdrew from the Somali Republic and declared itself independence once again. Although the State of Somaliland was recognized by some 35 nations during its brief independence from June 26 to July 1, 1960, no state recognized the nation’s restoration of independence in 1960. Not even Somaliland’s former colonial power, the United Kingdom, recognized Somaliland’s independence, even though many of the restored nation’s leaders had close ties to Britain. Upon independence in 1960, Somaliland’s military was composed of the Somaliland Scouts, whose officers were all trained in Britain and were graduates of Britain’s military colleges.

In 1961, the Somaliland officers, concerned that Somaliland was already receiving a raw deal from the union government in Mogadishu, staged an unsuccessful coup. These graduates of Eton and Sandhurst saw their countrymen receiving menial positions in the so-called «union» government in Mogadishu. Following the attempted coup, which sought a restoration of Somaliland’s independence, the Somaliland officers were imprisoned and not set free until 1964, when they were called on the help lead a war against neighboring Ethiopia for control of the Ogaden region. The Ogaden was recognized by the Mogadishu government as «Western Somalia».

In 1967, Egal, the founder of independent Somaliland, became prime minister of the country. The Italian Somaliland-born President, Abdirashid Ali Shermarke, appointed Egal to the post to assuage feelings in Somaliland that their better-trained and educated political leaders were being short-changed for high leadership positions in Mogadishu. The honeymoon between Somalilanders and Somalis did not last long. In 1969, Shermarke was assassinated by one of his bodyguards, suspected of being a loyalist of Barre. What followed was a military coup staged by Barre. Soon, Barre began a war of genocide against the Isaaqs and other smaller groups in Somaliland.

The Somalilanders formed an armed opposition group, the Somali National Movement (SNM), to battle Barre’s forces. In 1988, Barre’s war became more brutal when he bombed the Somaliland capital of Hargeisa, the port city of Berbera, and other towns in the region. The Barre campaign against the Isaaqs became known as the «Hargeisa holocaust». The United Nations concluded that Barre’s perpetration of genocide was «conceived, planned and perpetrated by the Somali Government against the Isaaq people».

In 1990, the SNM freed Somaliland from the Somali occupiers and the Barre junta collapsed the following year. The SNM restored Somaliland’s independence in 1991 and it claimed «successor state» status for the short-lived State of Somaliland. In 1994, Egal, the elder statesman of Somaliland, became Somaliland’s president.

Unlike 1990, however, Somaliland, with a population of 3.5 million, was not recognized by any other nation. To this day, the nation has pleaded before the African Union, the European Union, and the United Nations for recognition. The world has turned its head on the country, which remains a force of stability in an area plagued by civil war, maritime piracy, and terrorism.

What is particularly galling to the Somalilanders is that the African Union has made exceptions to its colonial border policy by recognizing the independence of Eritrea, carved out of Ethiopia, and South Sudan, separated from Sudan. There is a suspicion that the African Union and its puppet masters in Washington, London, and at the UN were more than willing to grant recognition to Eritrea in 1993 and South Sudan in 2011 because of the majority Christian populations of both nations. Somaliland is overwhelmingly Islam.

South Sudan is a particularly egregious example of recognition being extended to what would become a «failed state» wracked by civil war. South Sudan was the pet project of people like Barack Obama’s UN ambassador and National Security Adviser Susan Rice. In the leadup to South Sudan’s independence in 2011, there was not even an agreed name for the country. Before South Sudan» was settled upon, other names considered included the Nile Republic, Nilotia, Cush, and New Sudan. There has never been any question about the name of Somaliland.

South Sudan was created as the result of powerful forces in Washington. Independence for southern Sudan was a goal of former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and her acolyte Susan Rice. The splitting of Sudan was also in the interests of Israel, which had yearned for a client state in southern Sudan that apply pressure on the supply of the Nile's headwaters to Egypt and northern Sudan. For Rice, a vitriolic hatred for Khartoum and its majority Arab population, helped the cause of the southern Sudanese. Rice's views on southern Sudan and Khartoum were partly influenced by two Bill Clinton administration counter-terrorism officials, Steven Simon and Daniel Benjamin. Simon and Benjamin were also cozy with the Israel Lobby in Washington.

The African Union has also made exceptions to the dissolving of national unions of its member states. The Senegambia federation of Senegal and Gambia was dissolved in 1989 without resistance from the African Union. The Mali Federation between Senegal and the-then Sudanese Republic (French Sudan, later Mali) came to an end in 1960, after a two-moth existence. The Federation of Arab Republics, consisting of Egypt, Libya, and the non-African country of Syria, was dissolved in 1977. The United Arab Republic of Egypt and Syria ended in 1961. If Eritrea and South Sudan could exit from their «parent» nations and Senegal, Gambia, Libya, and Egypt were permitted to end their political unions, why is Somaliland dealt a different hand?

Some status quo enthusiasts for colonial borders in Africa point out that if Somaliland were granted recognition, it would start a wave of other regions demanding independence. This is a specious argument as seen with international support for Eritrea and South Sudan, both the products of long guerrilla wars for independence. If Somaliland were granted recognition, it would signal to other aspirant nations on the continent that they, too, might have worthy arguments for statehood. That is how Somaliland saw independence for Eritrea and South Sudan. Prior statehood or recognition of autonomy does, in fact, provide a legal basis for the independence of Zanzibar from Tanzania, Barotseland from Zambia, and the Caprivi Strip from Namibia. These aspirant nations saw their future nationhood doomed as the result of a colonial treaty, the Heligoland-Zanzibar Treaty of 1890. Similar colonial treaties across Africa have stymied the sovereignty of countless other peoples. The African Union, which prides itself on rising from the ashes of colonialism, should not embrace it when it is carried out by its member states.

The United States has just been admitted to the Indian Ocean Rim-Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC) as a «dialogue partner». In essence, the United States has received the same type of membership in the thirteen-year old Indian Ocean regional bloc as NATO has afforded to countries like Australia and Japan. There is little doubt that NATO and Washington see American associate status in IOR-ARC as a vehicle for bringing more nations to the East into the NATO fold. The United States joins NATO nations France, Britain, and NATO «global partners» Japan, Pakistan, and Egypt as an associate partner of the IOR-ARC.

India, which has served as chair of IOR-ARC since 2011, will turn over the chair to Australia in 2013. Under India’s chairmanship, the United States became a dialogue partner, and with close U.S. military ally Australia in charge from 2013-2015, IOC-ARC cooperation with NATO can be expected to grow even closer. The other IOR-ARC dialogue partner is China, and the politics behind America’s entry into Indian Ocean regional bloc politics can only be seen as a further attempt by Washington and its allies to resurrect the old George F. Kennan Cold War-era anti-Soviet «containment» policy and apply it to China.

By island-hopping through the Indian Ocean, NATO can eventually use the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN’s) regional forum, in which NATO members Canada, the United States, and NATO members in the European Union, as well as U.S. NATO global partner allies Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea, have dialogue partner status, to extend NATO’s reach from the Indian Ocean into the Asia-Pacific region. It is clear that NATO intends to become a global security bloc that would see the world in two-dimensional «NATO versus anyone else» terms.

Currently there are 28 members of NATO. Other nations in Europe waiting in the wings for full membership are Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Montenegro. Adding NATO global partners Iraq, Afghanistan, and Mongolia to the Mediterranean Dialogue countries of Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and perhaps, soon, Libya and the ICI countries of Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, and the true «road map» of NATO expansion comes into sharper focus.

IOR-AOC partner status will give the United States the diplomatic offices to convince the group to align itself with NATO, just as a joint Turkish-American initiative convinced the Gulf Cooperation Council countries of Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE to sign up for the ICI.

With Australia at the helm of the IOR-ARC from 2013 to 2015 and considering the fact that the Australian Labor Party of Prime Minister Julia Gillard and the Liberal-National Coalition of Opposition Leader Tony Abbott outdo each other in following the dictates of Washington, NATO will be in a commanding position to bring IOR-ARC nations into the western alliance’s firm grip. The easiest nations to convince will be those having an existing military relationship with the United States and/or Britain: Kenya, Oman, Seychelles, Mauritius, Thailand, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Nations where France has influence, Madagascar and Comoros, will quickly fall into line.

Indonesia, India, Tanzania, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Mozambique will see the economic benefits of cooperating with NATO. That will leave Malaysia, South Africa, and more interestingly, Iran, left out of the equation. However, NATO’s propaganda arm, which cleverly disguises its operations and those of the Central Intelligence Agency through the financing of non-governmental organizations associated with George Soros’s Open Society Institute, has trained its sights on the governments of Malaysia, South Africa, and Iran. The goal is to replace the governments of the three nations with more subservient regimes that will follow Washington’s and NATO’s orders.

It is clear that Washington is relying on the Gillard government in Canberra to extend NATO’s and America’s military influence in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. After attending the NATO Summit in Chicago in May 2012, Gillard agreed to a major presence of U.S. naval and air bases in Darwin and Perth, as well as the establishment of a drone base on the Australian-administered Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the Indian Ocean. There have been suggestions that Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was ousted in a parliamentary coup organized by the CIA and its Australian counterparts because Rudd was not keen on Australia’s closer military ties with the United States and NATO. Rudd reportedly favored a more independent and Asia-oriented foreign policy. If Rudd was a victim of a «perfectly-democratic» CIA coup, he would not have been the first victim. Independent-minded Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was deposed in a CIA-initiated constitutional coup in 1975. Whitlam was replaced by Liberal leader Malcolm Fraser, who, like Gillard, was more in synch with Washington’s wishes.

To be fair, Fraser, who is now 82, was one of the first Australian leaders who came out against the U.S. base expansion in Australia. In 2009, Fraser left the Liberal Party, criticizing its leader, Abbott, as a «conservative» and not a «liberal». Earlier, Fraser’s denunciation of Bush’s war policies, earned him the wrath of neo-cons in the Liberal Party, one of whom called the former prime minister a «frothing-at-the-mouth leftie» who supported Islamic fundamentalists. The criticism was similar to other knee-jerk character assassinations launched against anyone who disagreed with the neo-con, Israel-genuflecting, globalized NATO crowd. Whitlam, who is 96, patched things up with Fraser long ago. In 1996, they united to support Australia breaking its ties with the British crown and becoming a republic. Both were keenly aware that it was the Queen’s appointed Governor-General, Sir John Kerr, a longtime CIA asset, who engineered Whitlam’s ouster in 1975.

Expansion of NATO into a global military pact has its roots in the George W. Bush administration and, specifically, in a 2006 proposal floated by Bush’s ambassador to NATO, Ivo Daalder. Writing in the Council on Foreign Relations publication Foreign Affairs, Daalder proffered a neo-conservative dream: a «Global NATO» bringing into full membership South Africa, Japan, Brazil, and Australia. Arch-neocon publisher Rupert Murdoch has made no secret of his desire for his home country of Australia to become a full member of NATO. Many leading Zionists in the United States, Canada, and Britain have called for full NATO membership for Israel. Other neo-cons see a NATO with Singapore, New Zealand, South Korea, and India as full members.

The Mediterranean, ICI, and IOR-ARC moves by the United States are laying the groundwork for global NATO expansion. There is one development that could stand in NATO’s way: the fragmentation of NATO members from within, The possibilities of an independent Scotland splitting from England, an independent Quebec separating from Canada, and arising from the potentially failed states of Belgium, Spain, and Italy, independent Flanders, Catalonia, and Venice, may be the internal cancer that finally metastasizes into a disease that kills off NATO, once and for all.