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

Introduction

1 Introduction ORIGIN OF THIS STUDY This work originated from readings I undertook merely to satisfy my curiosity and clarify my thoughts. The search for clarification was prompted by two events that occurred in the course of my participation in the Oromo people’s struggle for national self-determination. These were the end of the Cold War and my exposure to the interrelatedness of conflicts in the Horn of Africa. Let me explain why both experiences impelled me to seek improved clarity of thought. First, I participated in the formation of the Oromo Liberation Front (olf) and in framing its agenda for self-determination in the early 1970s when socialism was the most fashionable political ideology in the Horn region. Consequently, the Oromo struggle for self-determination was conceptualized as part of a worldwide process of ending both class and national oppression within the wider goal of bringing about a totally new world order. Despite the rising implausibility that I would witness the dawning of this new world order during my lifetime, its long-range feasibility remained comfortingly possible until the momentous year of 1989. The initial rumblings of 1989 eventually resulted in the collapse of the Iron Curtain that stood between the “pioneers” of the promising “future” world order and their opponents, thus bringing the Cold War to an end and with it the political bearings that we as activists were accustomed to. Not only the neat left/right configuration of world political division but also the conception of movements as either forward or backward oriented went up in smoke. Furthermore, all such struggles for selfdetermination thereafter risked losing whatever universalist content they had had until then, at least theoretically. When the Cold War was unravelling I had no time to dwell on this emerging difficulty as I was busy reacting to one of its local repercussions: the overthrow of the Soviet-backed Ethiopian regime commonly known as the Derg. I could hence afford the time to reflect on and read about political developments emerging in the post-Cold War period only after my colleagues graciously demobilized me in late 1993. Let me now touch upon the second reason why I started the readings that eventually led to this work. During my participation in the Oromo struggle, particularly from 1978 to 1991, I stayed for varying periods of time in Djibouti, Somalia, and Sudan. During this period I was able to interact with these countries’ common folk as well as their leaders, which enabled me to observe first-hand their similarities and differences. Much more importantly, I started to realize how quickly political developments reverberated throughout the Horn region. The Oromo people’s struggle for national self-determination in particular had the peculiar misfortune of being negatively influenced by developments in Somalia and the Sudan. First, Oromia (the Oromo-settled areas of Ethiopia) stretches from edges of the Ogaden lowlands in the east to Ethiopia’s border with Sudan. The first complication that the Oromo struggle faced was the redefinition of the area targeted for annexation to realize Greater Somalia. Mohammed Siad Barre’s regime staked claim not only to the Ogaden but also to the Oromo-inhabited areas east of the Great Rift Valley, which constitutes almost half of the Oromo country. The rancour that inevitably ensued from this overlapping territorial claim had damaging consequences for both Somalia and the olf. The Siad regime’s ill-advised policy turned potential allies into enemies, thus prompting the olf to resist the annexation of eastern Oromia. The perhaps understandable aspiration of gathering all Somali speakers into one state could have probably succeeded in the absence of this complication.When this aspiration, which once constituted the pillar of Somali national consensus and cohesion, started dimming, however, the course that led to the currently reigning chaos was set. At the same time, the same complication severely stymied the growth of the olf. The fact that more members of its leadership were killed by Siad-backed fronts than by the Ethiopian Derg regime attests to the seriousness of the damage incurred by the olf as the result of this unfortunate complication. The second complication that interfered with the struggle of the Oromo for self-determination actually resulted from the steps the olf took to avoid this initial one. Aiming to establish itself in areas free of conflicting territorial claims, the olf launched a new area of operations in the districts bordering the Sudan in 1981...