I did not mind reading the various points
of view entertained by many discussants on the � Somalia online�.
However due to lack of knowledge of history and their fixation on the
differences, rather than similarities, of the Ethiopian and Somali people,
their analysis of the conflict was for the most part flawed. At the very
beginning of the Article (The Enigma�), for instance, I stated
the following: �the peoples of Ethiopia and Somalia have a lot in common
when it comes to physiognomy, culture, social organization, and thousands
of years of interaction, although this contiguous network was at times
uneasy and many times turned into violent clashes.�3 None of the Somalis
responded to or critically examined the commonality (or shared historical
destiny, e.g. geography) of the Ethiopian and Somali people. Instead, they
focused on their differences and some even emphasized on �Christian/
Islam differences� as if the former is attributed to Ethiopia and the
latter to Somalia . Ethiopia , after all is a country of Christians,
Moslems, Jews, and Polytheists (those who believe in traditional African
religions) who have lived side by side peacefully for millennia.
Incidentally, there are more Moslems in Ethiopia than in Somalia .
Similar opinions are also entertained by
Ethiopian discussants that view the Somalis as erstwhile deadly enemies.
In view of the latter, some Ethiopians have advanced legitimate criticism
against the current government of Ethiopia and others, jitters who only
react to the Meles regime (in fact, only to �Meles� dissociated from
the government), and not to the history and overall picture of the
conflict, have altogether missed the subtle nuances of the
Somalia-Ethiopia relations. Therefore, as I have done in the past, I shall
underscore here a background history to the conflict so that we can have a
better understanding and also empower ourselves for the provision of
permanent solution to the crisis in the Horn.
The conflict between the Somalis and
Ethiopians stretches back to the late 1520s when Imam Ahmed Ibin Ibrahim
al-Ghazi (Ahmed Gragn), a Somali from Adal declared a Jihad war against
Ethiopia and Emperor Libne Dingil. Reciting the wars between the Somalis
and Ethiopians in the first quarter of the 16th century, this is how I put
it in The Inigma, ��the Gragn forces crossed the River Dukem
and this was a wake up call for the Ethiopian king Libne Dingil who soon
mobilized his forces (close to 200,000) from Tigray, Agaw, Gojjam,
Begemdir, Shewa and the rest of his domain. Gragn, on the other hand, had
assembled only 12,000 troops but he had a distinct advantage of the
Turkish muskets, which the Libne Dingil forces were lacking. Gragn was not
only victorious. He routed the Ethiopian king, destroyed a sizable of the
Libne Dingil forces, burned down churches, and took booty unparalleled in
Ethiopian history. The Gragn campaign to destroy Ethiopia was conducted in
the name of Islam and Jihad, and to be sure there were some Arabs
(especially from Mahra in southern Arabia ) among the rank-and-file of his
forces who came to assist in the Jihad wars.�4 Almost five centuries
later, in the fist decade of the 21st century, may be history is repeating
itself.
In 1964, Ethiopia and Somali clashed on the
disputed territory of Ogaden . Soon the conflict escalated into a major
war, and Ethiopia , with its superior air and ground forces, virtually
destroyed the Somali army at the forefront. The Ethiopian army made
advances into the Somali interior and secured Ethiopian victory. Again, in
1977, another major war erupted between Ethiopia and Somalia when Said
Barre, the then president of Somalia , invaded Ogaden under the pretext of
aiding the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF). This time, the Somalis
had the upper hand and they were in firm control of the Ogaden and the
adjacent surrounding areas of Harar. They even claimed that Somali
territory is up to the Awash River . This perhaps was Barre�s fantasy of
putting himself in Ahmed Gragn�s shoes and crossing the Dukem once
again. But soon, the Ethiopian forces gathered momentum, recaptured the
Ethiopian territory � including the Ogaden � from Somali forces and
pursued the latter to Somalia .
In 1988, however, in an effort to silence
internal opposition and resistance, Said Barre and Mengistu Haile Mariam
of Ethiopia met to make peace and recreate normal relations between
Somalia and Ethiopia . But in just three years after the peace accord was
signed between the two countries, the United Somali Congress (USC) and the
Ethiopian Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) ousted Barre and Haile
Mariam from power respectively. In January 1991 Said Barre fled Mogadishu
and in the same year Mengistu fled Ethiopia to Zimbabwe .
The political scenario that followed Barre
and Mengistu in their respective countries, however were entirely
different in terms of preserving the nation and the continued performance
of the central government. Ethiopia , as a nation, with the exception of
the loss of Eritrea , is still in tact; a functioning central government
also continued to prevail in Addis Ababa . By contrast, Somalia virtually
killed itself under clan fratricidal wars; the Somali clan lords,
oblivious of their ancestral civic nationhood, wittingly or unwittingly,
signed a death warrant of the only one nation in Africa that is, by all
measure, homogenous in terms of language, culture, and religion. Out of
the estimated 10 million Somalis (in Somalia alone), only 10% are Bantu
and Arab; the rest are Somali; they speak one language and all of them
profess (Sunni) Islam. Ethiopia , by comparison, has over seventy-five
linguistic groups and the followers of Islam and Christianity are of equal
number. Ethiopia , thus far, has not signed tribal-ethnic warfare death
warrants unless the contagion theory is applicable to Ethiopia as well,
and unless Ethiopians wittingly turn their historic nation into an
ignominious morbid political entity, a mortification process unheard off
in the history of Ethiopia .
It is against the above background that we
must now try to fathom the present clannish warfare in Somalia and the
Ethiopia-Somalia conflict. The factions that opposed Said Barre in the
late 1980s and early 1990s were, after all, clan-based organizations
although most of them bear the name of � Somalia .� Here are some of
them: the Somali Salvation Democratic Front (SSDF), the Somali Democratic
Movement (SDM), the Somali National Movement (SNM), the Somali Patriotic
Movement (SPM), the United Somali Front (USF), the United Somali Party (USP),
and the 16-faction United Somali Congress (USC).5
Ethnic-based politics is dangerous not only
to the existence of a supra-national state, but it is also detrimental to
the very existence of the clan or ethnic group itself. As in the former
Yugoslavia , the Somali experience clearly demonstrated that clan warfare
or sub-clan fratricidal wars (as in the case of Ali Mahdi and Farah Aideed)
can easily destroy the nation. The center cannot hold in a clan-based
politics; the pillars that support the clan superstructure inevitably
collapse as it happened in Somalia . This is what exactly happened to the
United Somali Congress. Out of the 16 factions that comprised the USC, 12
supported Ali Mahdi, who was proclaimed president of Somalia in 1991, and
the four factions (now known as Somali National Alliance) gravitated
toward Farah Aideed. The two groups had irreconcilable differences, had no
agenda of dialogue, and soon fighting broke out between the factions and
in the middle of their senseless skirmishes the historic town of Mogadishu
was destroyed.
As the maxim goes, �in chaos there is
opportunity�; and using the unfortunate disturbances and instability of
Somalia , the northern Somalis at Berbera (former British Somaliland)
declared their province as independent Somaliland *. The mini-state
formation is a logical deduction of the degeneration of the clan into
sub-clan. Therefore, out Somaliland or �the northeast of the country, a
regional administration, led by Colonel Abdullahi Yusuf, was formally
established in August 1998. The Majerten clan controls this area, which is
now called Puntland.�6 �Clan politics undermines accountability and
merit,� argues Samatar, �since blood is the ultimate test of ability
to hold public office.�7
The bloodletting warfare in Somalia did not
only undermine accountability and merit, but it also turned Somalia into a
wasteland and political quagmire. This scenario, in turn, created a
wonderful opportunity for Jihadists (Somali or non-Somali alike) and
regional governments to operate proxy wars for their own selfish interests
on Somali soil. After all, it is the Somalis who are dying and their
national fabric torn into shreds, not that of the intervening shadowy
elements.
By regional intervention, I mean covert or
overt meddling in the Horn affairs from the Horn of Africa, the Middle
East , the Gulf, and others who have a stake in geopolitical interests. I
will further substantiate the intervening governments that are
masquerading behind the Somali crisis, but first I like to make my
position clear why Ethiopians should strike a balance between the Meles
regime and the defense and national interest of Ethiopia . With or without
Meles; with or without the present threat (Somali Islamic Court), the
conflict between Somalia and Ethiopia will linger for some time in the
future unless the two countries come to their senses and are no longer
manipulated by regional and international regimes. It is in light of the
above rationale that I justified Ethiopia�s intervention in Somalia in
2002 and this how I put it then: ��the Ethiopian government was after
the Al Itihad since 1996, and to some extent the Ethiopian move is
justified because the Al Itihad could have been responsible for the bomb
sabotage in Addis Ababa and the assassination attempt of Abdul Mejid
Hussien, former Ethiopian minister of transport, and this same group may
have been involved in the bombardment of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and
Dar es Salam. But in the wake of the September 11 tragedy, the Al Itihad
al Islamia may be a force to reckon with.�8
In fact, I was right. The Al Itihad al
Islamia gradually disappeared and is now defunct although some of its
members are now affiliated to the Islamic Court. In a power vacuum and no
man�s land environment, it is no wonder that factions could be forged
almost overnight and declare themselves as a viable and legitimate forces
of Somalia . The vultures are always there to finish up the remains of the
dead factions and to coach and arm the newly emerging and seemingly
powerful factions. This reality is most fitting to the Somali Islamic
Court, and the veteran organizations, namely the Ogaden National
Liberation Front (ONLF) and the WSLF (now reconstituted as the United WSLF
or UWSLF). Quite obviously, the ONLF is a duplication of the WSLF with a
political program to help secede �Ogaden� from Ethiopia . These
organizations may or may not have a sincere political agenda of �liberating�
their respective peoples but they are serving as �dark horses� for
intervening forces as we shall see below.
According to David H. Shinn, former US
ambassador to Ethiopia, �the UN Monitoring Group for Somalia reported
that between May 2005 and October 2005, Eritrea provided arms to the ONLF,
the governor of lower Shabelle, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, and others for
the purpose of countering support provided by Ethiopia to the TFG�Their
report added that Eritrea then provided at least four consignments of
arms, ammunition, and military equipment to representatives of the Islamic
Courts in March 2006.�9
It is interesting to know who Hassan Dahir
Aweys is! Apparently, Colonel Aweys was a commander in the national Somali
army under Said Barre during the 1977 Ethio-Somali war. Aweys was in the
temporarily occupied Ogaden region of Ethiopia till the Ethiopian forces,
as mentioned earlier; counter attacked and dislodged the invading Somali
troops. Sheikh Aweys, like other mercenaries and their patrons, is also
aware of the potential gas reserve in the Ogaden, especially in the Hillal
and Calub districts. So, it is not just terrorism as is often
superficially covered by the Western media that is the cause for the
conflict; it is also a war conducted for the control and exploitation of
strategic minerals, very much like the civil wars executed in Sierra Leone
and Liberia .
Eritrea , of course denied its presence in
Somalia , let alone admitting to supporting the ONLF or the Islamic Court.
By the same taken, Ethiopia also denied the presence of its troops in
Somalia except for few hundreds that train the army of the Transitional
Federal Government (TFG).
There is no doubt that many countries are
involved in the Somali crisis. Again, as per Ambassador Shinn, �the UN
Monitoring Group reported the delivery to the TFG between November 2005
and April 2006 of small amounts of military aid or dual-use equipment by
Djibouti , Italy , Saudi Arabia , and Yemen . The more recent,
confidential UN report added that both sides in the Somali conflict have
major outside backers. In addition to the support already discussed, it
said the Islamic Courts receive aid from Iran , Libya , Saudi Arabia , and
the Gulf States .�10
It is also highly probable that Egypt ,
with its freak obsession of controlling the waters of the Nile and her
wish to destabilize Ethiopia , would support the Somali Islamic Court.
Dubai and Qatar from the Gulf have recently showed interest (and have
already invested) in running the port of Djibouti and the businesses of
Somalia ; and to facilitate this objective, the Islamic Court
representatives have been allowed to use the good offices of the Emir of
Qatar for diplomatic purposes.
The meddling of all these political actors
in Somalia may actually further foment fratricidal wars and instability in
the Horn. It is therefore very crucial that the UN-sponsored peace mission
takes initiative as has already been declared and stay there as long as it
takes. Unlike the masquerading forces, the UN Blue Helmets are impartial
and will help Somalia resuscitate from its deathbed.
If at all we are going to have a lasting
peace in the Horn of Africa, the following political parameters should be
seriously considered:
Ethiopian and Somali scholars and
intellectuals should organize conferences and/or workshops to address
the Horn crisis and come up with proposals and solutions to the
problem.
