The Horn of Africa as Common Homeland: The State and Self-Determination in the Era of Heightened Globalization

6. The Uncertain and Interdependent Fate of Horn Entities

105 6 The Uncertain and Interdependent Fate of Horn Entities INTRODUCTION The interactive process that brought the various entities of the Horn of Africa into existence has been summarized in the previous chapter. Their status as tentative footholds for grander imperial territorial acquisitions has also been discussed. I will now proceed to briefly summarize how even their territorial definition remained susceptible to change well into the 1950s. Prior to this period, some of these entities appeared destined to disappear by being absorbed into adjacent ones, resulting in the expansion of the absorbing entities. The potential territorial alterations perhaps impacted minimally on the day-to-day existence of the concerned populace. Nevertheless, as Rubenson (1989: 406) states, “Ideas, plans and proposals, once expressed publicly or institutionalized in government departments and agencies, seem to hold on to some kind of life of their own, more or less dynamic, sometimes hibernating as it were for a longer or shorter period of time.” Rubenson then traces developments in the Ethiopia of the 1970s and 1980s back to various proposals to partition the Empire during the decades after its emergence. The same could perhaps be said regarding simultaneous political developments in Somalia and Sudan. The repercussions of the proclaimed or implemented proposals by themselves would not have perhaps endured. Couching them in terms that appeared to recognize the rights of numerous nations was what imbued them with lasting implications. The notion of ascribing certain territories to the nations inhabiting them started to emerge during this time, permanently affecting the politics of the region. THE ETHIOPIAN EMPIRE’S UNCERTAIN FATE The Ethiopian Empire was merely a quasi-independent entity, as seen by the powers owning contiguous colonies. “The most obvious expression of recognized statehood was then the ability to gain access to imported arms,” according to Clapham (2002: 11). Each concerned European power upheld the right of Abyssinian rulers to acquire arms either as a first step toward the Empire’s annexation or to frustrate a similar agenda of its competitor. The aberrant existence of Ethiopia as an independent entity in an otherwise completely partitioned Africa was widely expected to be temporary. The ease with which the concerned powers subsequently deliberated on partitioning the Empire attests to this expectation . Spheres of Influence As Emperor Menelik’s health started failing in the early 1900s, the concerned powers (Britain, France, and Italy) found it necessary to revisit the fate of the Ethiopian Empire. They had divergent appraisals of what could follow a chaotic succession, if Menelik died without naming an heir. France and Italy looked forward to the Empire’s disintegration, hoping to extend their adjacent colonies. Britain, however, preferred supporting “a neutral, weak, indigenous Ethiopian Government than to allow the country to be divided into spheres of influence” (Marcus 1964: 30).After a series of complicated diplomatic negotiations, they ultimately concluded the Tripartite Treaty of 1906. Despite agreeing to maintain “intact the integrity of Ethiopia” (Ghebre-Ab 1993: 17–19), they proceeded to assign each other spheres of influence. The Nile basin was assigned to Britain while France was granted the area through which ran the railway then under construction from its colony of Djibouti. The lion’s share was allocated to Italy in order to afford it a “territorial connection between Eritrea and Italian Somaliland” (Barker 1968: 22–23) through a corridor passing to the west of the imperial capital.Kitchener ultimately drew up the 1913 proposal based on the relevant articles of this treaty (see map 3). It was succeeded by yet another proposal apparently discussed during the grand territorial bazaar held in Paris after the First World War (see map 4). (Both maps are from Rubenson 1989.) Appeasing Fascist Italy Britain and France returned to the issue of the fate of the Ethiopian Empire in the mid-1930s when they wished to entice Italy away from entering into alliance with Germany by bribing it with territorial concesThe Horn of Africa as Common Homeland 106 The Uncertain and Interdependent Fate of Horn Entities 107 Map 3: Tripartite Partition: Kitchener Scheme of 1913 (pro. mpk 430—s.r. 1934) Map 4: Anglo-Italian World War i Partition Scheme (pro. mr 1932—s.r. 1934) sions at Ethiopia’s expense. Consequently, they began cajoling “Haile Selassie into handing over large portions of Ethiopian territory to Italy” (Barker 1968: 191). “[H]ow little would Italy take; how much would Ethiopia yield; how...