Toward Northeast African Cooperation: Resolving the Ethiopia-Somalia Disputes

Brief Historical Background

The Horn of Africa has been the site of one of the largest externally funded military buildups in the developing world, undertaken by a wide array of foreign powers. As a result, it has experienced some of the bloodiest conflicts in recent memory. The primary causes of these conflicts have been super-power rivalry for hegemony in the subregion on the one hand, and, at the local level, competition over a declining natural resource base on the other. The history of the subregion includes massive population movements in search of better pastures, farmlands, and water resources. The subregion also has some of the highest population growth rates in the world. Cultivable land is becoming limited, and intense farming and grazing are depleting soils.¹ To be sure, over the last 40 years, the Horn of Africa has been virtually synonymous with crisis. Civil wars, interstate wars, proxy wars, incursions of Islamic fundamentalism, assertive sovereignty, clan conflicts, power struggles, economic competition, bloody revolutions, famine, refugee flows, brutal dictatorships, state collapse, warlordism, and unremitting poverty and famine have all been, one way or the other, the chief images and realities associated with the subregion.² The conflicts between the Somalis and the Ethiopians have contributed, directly or indirectly, the lion's share to such a state of affairs.

Addressing the Addis Ababa Heads of State Summit of 1963, which created the Organization of African Unity, President Aden Abdullah Osman of Somalia said:

Ethiopia has taken possession of a large portion of Somali territory without the consent and against the wishes of the inhabitants. The Somali government has no claims for territorial aggrandizement, but is asking for the application of the principle of self-determination.³

In exercising his right of reply, Prime Minister Aklilou Habte Wolde of Ethiopia argued that

the statement made by the Somali leader was an outrageous and an unthinkable accusation, without any factual basis. The historical frontiers of Ethiopia stretched from the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean, including all the territory between them. That is a fact. There is no record in history either of a Somali State or a Somali nation. I regret to say it, but that too is a fact. An international treaty regulates the frontiers between the two countries. If the Somali Republic does not recognize the treaty, then it will not even exist. If he is not seeking territorial aggrandizement, then, what is he seeking? On what does he base the claim? On linguistic reasoning or on religious grounds?⁴

From the Ethiopian standpoint there is no doubt that what is now called Djibouti and Somaliland, as well as the well-known Somali port of Zeila, were part of the ancient Ethiopian Kingdom of Axum. In fact, Zeila was, along with Adulis and Swakin, one of Ethiopia's major outlets to the sea. Having recovered Massawa and the Dahlaque Islands from the Arabs in 854 AD,⁵ Ethiopia still continued to control the Port of Zeila in 977 AD.⁶ Zeila was again recovered by Emperor Amde Tsion (1312–1342), when he reduced Muslim principalities like Ifat and Fatagar to tributary states in 1328.⁷ In 1332, all hostile Muslim states were brought under one ruler, Jamal al-Din, who paid tribute to the Ethiopian central government.⁸ Zeila was again reconquered by Negus Dawit (1382–1411) and in 1415 by Negus Yeshaque (1414–1429), and it remained an important center of trade between Ethiopia and Arabia in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. Adal and Mogadishu were defeated in 1445 by the forces of Emperor Zere Yacob (reigned 1434–1468), and control of the southern trade route was secured.⁹

The word "Somali" appeared for the first time in the victory celebration songs of Negus Yeshaque.¹⁰ Thereafter, commercial centers like Mogadisho, Brava, and Merca became dependent for their prosperity upon the entrepôt trade between Ethiopia and Arabia and the markets of the East. Having brought an end to Harar as a military power in 1577, Emperor Sertse Dengil (1563–1597)¹¹ also led an expedition and recovered Inarya...