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Can the Somali region speak?

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Ethiopia Insight | Tobias Hagmann | Ethiopian Somalis must reject politically motivated, shallow historical narratives and produce a new story that accurately captures their lived experiences.

The author dedicates this article to the memory of Ahmed Ali Gedi ‘Borte.’

Many years ago I conducted an interview with a leader of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). At the time, Ethiopia’s Somali regional state was often referred to as ‘region 5’ or kilil amist.

When I asked the ONLF leader about ‘region 5’, he became irritated and said: “My home is not a number!” I thought he was just being nationalistic as ONLF members often refer to the Somali inhabited parts of Ethiopia as ‘Ogadenia’ rather than the Somali regional state, its official name. Much later, I realised that he was right. Who wants his or her home to be a number? Who wants to live in a place whose name has been externally imposed?

Admittedly, geographical names are never neutral. Most Africans had their names and identities imposed on them by European colonialists. But what if a society or a community never gets to choose its name? This has been and continues to be the case for Somalis living in today’s Somali regional state of Ethiopia.

In the case of Ethiopia’s Somali population, this conundrum goes far beyond geographical or territorial designations. Rather, it reflects a crisis both of representation and self-representation. In spite of ethnic federalism and a constitutionally guaranteed right to political self-determination, Somalis in Ethiopia never had the chance to decide on their political fate. Equally important, they rarely had the opportunity to write or narrate their own lives, history, and experience.

This enduring crisis of self-representation is maybe best formulated as a question, namely: Can the Somali region speak? Here, I am referring to the famous essay by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak with the provocative title ‘Can the subaltern speak?’ published in 1983. Her text is a classic contribution to post-colonial theory, which criticizes the continued dominance of Western knowledge in the representation of non-Westerners.

What does Spivak mean when she asks: ‘Can the subaltern speak?’ By subaltern she refers to social groups – peasants, lower-caste individuals, women, and so on – who have continuously been subordinated. Their history and collective experience have mostly been represented by others – by colonizers, by national elites, by intellectuals.

They are often ‘spoken about’ but are rarely allowed to ‘speak for themselves.’ Their agency and subjectivity are denied because others constantly speak for and about them.

When I ask ‘Can the Somali region speak?’ what I mean is: can the people who live in this part of Ethiopia speak for themselves? Can they represent themselves? Can they define and shape their own narrative? So the question really is: has the Somali region ever spoken for itself? Or, has it mostly been others who have spoken for the Somali region and its inhabitants?

In their modern history, Somalis living in Ethiopia’s southeastern lowlands never had the opportunity to speak for themselves. Instead, it has been outsiders who have named, claimed, and defined the Somali region’s inhabitants. The outsiders speak about Somalis in such a way that goes in line with their political geopolitical interests.

Opposing historiographies

Why is it that Somalis in Ethiopia have struggled to speak for and represent themselves? One reason is that the Somali region has been the object of two opposing national historiographies since the late 19th century.

By historiography I mean both popular stories and academic writings that are told and written about a particular community, society, or nation. In its broadest sense, historiography includes the official history that is taught in schools, but also stories that are passed on from one generation to the next. In essence, I mean the historical interpretations that most members of a given society agree upon, often uncritically.

On the one hand, we have Somali historiography and the Somali studies tradition. Their accounts describe the Somali region – often referred to as Ogaden – as Somali territory colonised by Ethiopian highlanders, but also by British and Italian powers. In this narrative, the ‘Somali region’ is a territory that, in reality, is part of Somalia and the Somali people.

The region is memorised as a place of suffering and repression by successive Ethiopian regimes, from Haile Selassie to the TPLF and the former regional president Abdi Mohamed Omar ‘Iley’. The Somali region is seen as a place of displacement and the home of rich natural resources – from frankincense to oil and gas – which foreigners want to loot. From the viewpoint of Somali historiography, the Somali region of Ethiopia is a space of repeat victimisation.

On the other hand, we have Ethiopian historiography and Ethiopian studies, which for a long time promoted what historians call ‘the great tradition.’ The ‘great tradition’ offers an almost transcendental tale of the Ethiopian monarchy and nation-state, emphasising the country’s past and future glories. Writings by Ethiopian historians, soldiers, and administrators reveal a completely different view of the Ogaden and of today’s Somali region.

Their stories portray the region as a place of hardship for habeshas. They describe Somalis as rebellious people who are “always fighting” and on whose loyalty the Ethiopian state cannot count on.

They saw and often still see the Somali region as a land of nomads who need to be civilised and modernised by the Ethiopian state bureaucracy through sedentarization, development, planning, and administration.

In this narrative, the Somali parts of Ethiopia have to be defended to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity – in particular against neighbouring Somalia. But its inhabitants can never be fully trusted.

Which one of these two opposing historiographies of Ethiopia’s Somali region should we listen to? Which one is more accurate? Which one captures the past and present of this part of the world better?

Many readers familiar with the region will have their opinions on this. I want to argue that both historiographies make some important points, but both are also seriously deficient, reductionist, and ideological. Neither one of them does justice to the real history of the people of the Somali region.

Both historical traditions treat the Somali region as a periphery, which is of interest only as long as it is relevant to the political centre. The Somali region has been and still is a double periphery – peripheral to both Ethiopia and Somalia. At the end of the day, both historiographies are the by-product of either the Somali or the Ethiopian nationalist project. Too often, they are not based on local people’s lived experiences or family histories. Rather, they tell the story of the Ogaden, now the Somali region, from the vantage point of male leaders with a particular political agenda.

Both historiographies of the Somali region silence the lives and struggles of normal people such as rural folk, women, minorities, and generally less powerful groups. As a result, both have prevented the emergence of a historiography of the Somali region that is thought, written, and told not from the viewpoint of Mogadishu or Addis Ababa, but from the viewpoint of Gode, Jigjiga, Degehabur and Shilabo, Afdheer and Qabridehar, Gora Babagsa, Kelafo, Wardheer, Fiq, Shinile, and so on.

Silencing the ‘Somali region’

Some might argue that history is always contested. Or that what matters most are not historical facts, but how history is used in present-day politics. In other words, what really matters is who can make his or her history count and whose history is being discounted or swept under the rug. My argument here is that both Somali studies and Ethiopian historiography have swept a large part of the lived experiences of Somalis in Ethiopia under the rug.

Like the rest of Ethiopia, the region underwent one regime change after the other – from Haile Selassie to the Derg and then the recent Abdi ‘Iley’ dictatorship under the EPRDF. All regimes created and popularized new political narratives based on a selective and clearly instrumentalist interpretation of the region’s past. These narratives further complicated the writing and telling of local histories that did not comply with these state-sanctioned historiographies. The absence of independent research and academic institution further compounded this problem.

Some examples may highlight how important aspects of the Somali region’s political history have been silenced and overlooked by these two historiographies.

First, both have offered stereotypical accounts of the position of Ethiopian-Somali elites vis-a-vis the Ethiopian state. Rather than simply being for or against the central government, Ethiopian-Somali elites have gone through repeat cycles of compromise, partial acceptance, growing distrust, and full rejection of the Ethiopian state. A good illustration of this is the armed struggle against the Imperial government, which started in 1963 and was led by Makthal Dahir.

The Ogaden leader and his colleagues were former district commissioners working for the Haile Selassie administration before they took up arms. The Somali government of Aden Abdullah Osman supported the rebels initially until it agreed to a truce with Haile Selassie, leaving the insurgents in a limbo. The ONLF underwent a similar pattern of cooperation with the new Ethiopian government in the early 1990s followed by armed opposition between 1994 and 2018 and, today, a reintegration into the political system as a registered regional political party.

Both Somali and Ethiopian historiography have failed to account for this uncomfortable in-betweenness that has been the hallmark of Ethiopian-Somali political elites. When insurgents of the Western Somali Liberation Front started to mobilize against the Derg, the Somali government of Siad Barre again intervened to assist them. But, its agenda did not always align with the priorities of the WSLF.

An eyewitness of the time whom I interviewed in 2012 about the 1977/1978 Ethiopian-Somali or Ogaden war told me: “When the liberation movement reached Degehabur, the Somali army planted the Somali flag. The WSLF lost its temper and told them: ‘Stop planting your flag there and don’t start collecting taxes!’”

Many in the WSLF were eventually frustrated by the Somali government. The latter had helped them, but also internationalised and instrumentalised their rebellion. Somali state media like Radio Mogadishu and Radio Hargeisa covered the Ogaden war with vivid interest. But locals from the region were rarely on the airwaves. Instead, Somali military generals spoke on their behalf. This demonstrates how, historically, both the Ethiopian and the Somali governments have sought to appropriate and speak on behalf of the Ogaden (today, the Somali region).

Internal conflicts and contradictions

A second shortcoming of the Somali and Ethiopian historiographies of Somalis in Ethiopia is their unwillingness to consider internal differences and tensions.

The Somali region does not have a single historical and socio-political narrative. Rather, there are multiple – at times competing –  narratives, which reflect divergent historical trajectories and experiences of its people. The region’s population is not just ‘Somali’. It consists of various social groups: from urbanites to agro-pastoralists, from livestock producers to traders, and from ancient inhabitants to newcomers.

Many of its inhabitants have multiple loyalties, family ties, and allegiances. Communities are thus not homogenous. The northern parts of Somali region, in particular Shinille and the Jigjiga lowlands, have a different political history to the Ogaden heartland. The southern and western parts of the region also have distinct historical features.

Ethno-national discourse always seeks to suppress internal contradictions. The longstanding conflict between the ONLF and the Ethiopian government was often portrayed as the latest edition of an age-old confrontation between Somalis and Ethiopians. This was true at the initial stages of the war when ethnic Somalis predominantly fought against non-Somali troops of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces.

However, for a decade – roughly between 2008 and 2018 – the conflict was between Somali special police members sponsored by the government and ethnic Somali that supported ONLF.

This conflict was in many ways a civil war among members of the Ogaden clan family, pitting supporters of the regional president and strongman Abdi ‘Iley’ against his enemies. These internal conflicts and tensions among the Ogaden, but also between many other clan lineages in the region, are an uncomfortable topic for Somali historiography. They are regularly glossed over given the perceived political imperative to present a unified front vis-à-vis the Ethiopian state and its representatives.

If Ethiopian historiography casually overlooks the repressive legacies of the Ethiopian state in its Somali periphery, Somali historiography ignores the ambiguous agendas of Ethiopian-Somali leaders past and present.

These examples demonstrate that there is a good chunk of Somali region history that contradicts, or at least complicates, both Somali and Ethiopian historiography. Admittedly, political instability, repression, and remoteness have for a long time made independent research very cumbersome. This has rendered the emergence of a more nuanced and more empirically founded historiography very difficult. Basic ethnographic and historical accounts of the Somali region have yet to be written. To this day, the rural histories of the region – the histories of pastoralists, in particular – remain undocumented and unwritten.

Letting the Somali region speak

It is tempting to think that Somalis in Ethiopia have simply been unlucky with regard to their geography, that their home will always be the double-periphery of Somalia and Ethiopia, or that the region will always be stuck in its unfortunate colonial history.

Others will argue that Ethiopian-Somalis’ difficulties in speaking for themselves are largely the product of an oral society with low levels of formal education. Some will point out that much of my critique and analysis is not specific to Somalis in Ethiopia, but that it applies in equal measure to many of Ethiopia’s historically marginalized groups, reflecting imperial legacies of the Ethiopian nation-state that remain unresolved today.

These reservations confirm that the history of Somali region and its people has not been told yet. They call for a paradigm shift in documenting and narrating the experiences of Somalis in Ethiopia. Their histories need to be told again, told anew, told on the basis of solid empirical data, and told from a different vantage point. The Somali region is not a periphery, it is a centre. It is at the heart of the Horn of Africa, connecting highlands and lowlands, sea ports and inland cities, Islam and Christianity, and various ethnic groups.

A new history of the Somali region of Ethiopia needs to be written from this vantage point of centrality. It needs to make the voices of its men, women, children, and elderly heard. It will have to tell the story not of one people, but the stories of many people – of camel herders, female traders, khat sellers, school girls, farmers, administrators, returnees, rebels, investors, daily laborers, poets, and many others. It will have to tell stories of the powerful and the powerless, of joy and grief, of hope and despair. It will have to break free from the tropes of the existing politicised narratives.

Importantly, this new historiography of the Somali region will have to be written by intellectuals from the region and its neighbouring territories. Rewriting the histories of Somalis in Ethiopia is not a purely academic exercise. It can help pave the way for a new political imagination that is liberating. A political imagination that allows Somalis in Ethiopia to finally speak up, to make themselves heard, and to be heard.

Security agents killed in central Somalia roadside bomb attack

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Al Jazeera | Police say Abdirashid Abdunur, intelligence chief for Dhusamareeb town, was killed in the blast claimed by al-Shabab.

A roadside bomb went off just outside the central Somalia town of Dhusamareeb on Sunday, killing 12 agents working for the National Intelligence and Security Agency, police said.

Those killed included Abdirashid Abdunur, the head of the intelligence agency in Dhusamareeb, police officer Mohamed Ahmed said.

The al-Qaeda-linked armed group, al-Shabab, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Political leaders have been meeting in Dhusamareeb, a town about 510 kilometres (317 miles) north of the capital Mogadishu, to try to resolve a dispute over how to hold an election due on Monday.

A deal on how to choose a new president on Monday has been elusive so far, threatening to unleash more political turmoil.

Somalia had initially aimed to hold its first direct election in more than 30 years but delays in preparations, and the government’s inability to rein in daily attacks by al-Shabab, meant switching to an indirect vote, with elders picking legislators who would choose a president.

However, regional authorities in at least two of Somalia’s five federal states, Puntland and Jubbaland, oppose holding the election for now.

Somalia’s opposition cease recognising president as election row escalates

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – An alliance of Somali opposition parties proposed the creation of a national council of lawmakers, opposition leaders and civil society to govern the Horn of Africa nation after the president’s term expired on Monday with no clear succession plan.

The power vacuum and divisions between political leaders was a boost to the al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab insurgency, a Somali security analyst warned, citing a spate of recent attacks in a relatively peaceful part of the country.

The opposition alliance said they would reject any attempt to extend the term of President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed and suggested the council could elect a transitional leader to govern until a new president can be chosen by lawmakers.

“We are against time extension, suppression, violence and further delay to the election,” the alliance said in a statement. “An election schedule should immediately without delay be displayed with agreed upon specified time.”

There was no immediate comment from the presidency. Aides had previously privately floated the idea of extending his term.

In a statement issued by its embassy in Mogadishu, the United States urged Mohamed to “act now to resolve the political impasse…and find agreement with Federal Member State leaders to allow the conduct of parliamentary and presidential elections immediately.”

“The political gridlock…has resulted in a disappointing lack of progress in fighting al-Shabaab.”

Somalia was initially planning to hold its first direct election since civil war erupted in 1991, but delays in preparations and continuous attacks by al Shabaab forced Somalia to plan another indirect vote.

Clan elders should have chosen lawmakers in December and the lawmakers were due to choose a president on Monday.

But selection of lawmakers was delayed after the opposition accused President Mohamed – who was seeking a second term – of packing regional and national electoral boards with his allies.

Leaders in two of Somalia’s five federal states, Puntland and Jubbaland, have said they will no longer recognise President Mohamed.

On Sunday night at midnight, the capital Mogadishu lit up with gunfire and drums as residents said they were celebrating the end of the president’s term.

“We are firing into the sky to say goodbye to the dictator Farmajo, he has burnt Somalia these four years,” said a soldier Aden Ali, using President Mohamed’s common nickname.

Hussein Sheikh Ali, Somalia’s former national security advisor and founder of the Mogadishu-based Hiraal think-tank, said al Shabaab had already taken advantage of the security vacuum to launch attacks in portions of central Somalia that had been relatively peaceful for around a decade.

“They (al Shabaab) are laughing out loud,” he said. “This is a failure by the president, Somalia’s political elite and the international community. They didn’t have a plan B to move forward.”

On Sunday, 12 security agents were killed by a roadside bomb outside the town of Dhusamareb in central Somalia where political leaders were meeting to try to resolve disagreements over the presidential selection process. Al Shabaab also launched repeated mortar attacks on the town.

The attack happened a week after four al Shabaab suicide attackers killed five people at a hotel in Mogadishu.

Finnish EU envoy to investigate ‘dire’ Ethiopia war

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EU Observer | The security situation in Ethiopia was “dire”, as Finnish foreign minister Pekka Haavisto prepared to travel to the region on an EU fact-finding mission.

Finnish FM

Finnish foreign minister Pekka Haavisto | Wikimedia Commons

“Nearly three months after the start of the conflict … the security situation in Tigray [a region of Ethiopia] remains dire, with reports of localised fighting especially in rural areas,” Haavisto told EUobserver.

“There is news circulating that hundreds of thousands of people have yet to receive [humanitarian] assistance,” he said.

But “access to the affected regions remains limited due to the challenging security environment and bureaucratic obstacles,” he added.

War broke out last year between the government of prime minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a local power which defied his rule.

The TPLF leader, Debretsion Gebremichael, said on Sunday (1 February) that the Ethiopian army was guilty of “genocide” and “massacres”.

He also said three foreign powers were fighting on Ethiopia’s side, while urging the international community to investigate “the atrocities” he spoke of.

An Ethiopian government spokeswoman told the BBC that Gebremichael’s words were “the delusions of a criminal clique” and accused the TPLF of “horrendous crimes” in return.

Ethiopia has also denied that Eritrean and Somalian forces, as well as Emirati drones, were fighting on its side.

But the US state department has confirmed that Eritrea was involved.

And Tigrayans who fled to neighbouring Sudan have told Human Rights Watch, an NGO, that Ethiopian forces were guilty of indiscriminate shelling and extrajudicial killings.

For his part, Finland’s Haavisto said: “The regional impacts of the Tigray conflict are of growing concern”.

“Reports indicate that more than 58,000 refugees have fled to Sudan and tensions in the border areas are growing dangerously,” he added.

The Nordic diplomat planned to go to “Ethiopia and its neighbouring regions” in the “next few weeks”, he said, after EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell tasked him with the mission last week.

Haavisto is to travel with Alexander Rondos, an EU special representative for the Horn of Africa.

An internal EU report, last November, said Europe feared “the unravelling of the Ethiopian state” and the creation of millions of refugees if the war got worse.

And it feared instability could spread to neighbouring Djibouti, Eritrea, and Somalia.

The Ethiopia conflict is just one of several in the EU’s southern neighbourhood, including ones in Libya, Israel, the Sahel, and Syria.

Meanwhile, Europe’s eastern flank is also becoming increasingly volatile.

Warfare recently erupted in Azerbaijan and goes on unabated in eastern Ukraine.

A political crisis in Belarus and mass-scale demonstrations in Russia have also posed questions about the future of the ruling regimes there.

Russia diplomacy
Russia, on Sunday, arrested another 4,000 people in nationwide protests calling on authorities to free opposition hero Alexei Navalny.

“Russian citizens’ right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression should be respected,” Haavisto told EUobserver.

Borrell, the EU top diplomat, is himself going to Moscow at the end of this week to urge Navalny’s release and to discuss “strategic” issues.

And Haavisto said it was important for the EU to keep up Russia diplomacy despite the deteriorating ties.

He also highlighted the need for “people-to-people contacts” between ordinary Russians and Europeans, “which have taken a big setback from the Covid pandemic”.

“We have a lot of experience on this, as Finland issues the highest number of Schengen visas in Russia,” Haavisto said, referring to Europe’s ‘Schengen’ free-travel area.

Militants Storm Hotel in Somali Capital and Blasts Rock Area

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NYT | The authorities said there were reports of at least two dead and 11 injured at the Afrik Hotel. A militant group, the Shabab, was believed to be behind the attack.

NAIROBI, Kenya — Militants with the extremist group al-Shabab stormed a major hotel in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on Sunday evening, the authorities said, raising fears of growing violence in the Horn of Africa nation as it faces a bitterly contested election season and the withdrawal of American troops.

The attack, which began at around 5 p.m. local time, took place at the Afrik Hotel, which is on the road to the city’s major international airport and a popular meeting place for politicians, lawmakers and members of the security services.

Images and video shared on social media showed smoke billowing into the blue skies. Heavy gunfire and blasts were heard in the hotel’s vicinity, according to Ismael Mukhtar Omar, the spokesman of Somalia’s ministry of information.

Authorities said that the Shabab militant group, which is Al Qaeda’s most powerful ally in Africa and has wreaked havoc across East Africa, carried out the attack. Security forces were continuing to engage them inside the hotel Sunday night. A Somali police spokesman, Sadiq Adan Ali, said in a statement that most of the people who were at the hotel had been evacuated.

Abdulkadir Adan, the founder of Aamin Ambulance, Mogadishu’s only free ambulance service, said in a text message that his team had removed the bodies of two people killed in the attack, and had taken another 11 who were injured from the site of the violence.

Mohamed Nur Galal, a former top military general, was killed in the attack, Mr. Omar confirmed in a post on Twitter. Among those rescued were senior federal and regional government officials along with security officers, he added.

The attack came just weeks before a crucial parliamentary and presidential election that has been plagued by disputes over how to properly conduct the voting, creating an impasse that risks delaying the vote and pushing the government past its constitutional term limit.

The disagreements, embroiling the federal and regional governments and opposition parties, have alarmed the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and African states, which have called on the various parties “to resolve the remaining electoral implementation issues in order for credible and inclusive elections to proceed.”

The elections were scheduled for Feb. 8, but that timeline looks unattainable now. President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed has called on regional leaders to meet starting Monday to deal with the electoral crisis.

The tensions over the elections came to the fore last week after heavy infighting broke out between Somali forces and those from the southern region of Jubaland. Somali officials blamed the violence on groups backed by neighboring Kenya, allegations that officials in Nairobi denied. Somalia has severed diplomatic relations with Kenya after accusing it of meddling in its internal affairs.

Somalia is facing a host of other crises, including the coronavirus pandemic, swarms of desert locusts that are destroying crops, and the displacement of tens of thousands of people by seasonal floods late last year.

The Shabab militant group also continues to remain a threat, targeting civilians, government officials and peacekeeping forces besides carrying out attacks on restaurants, hotels and other establishments.

The Qaeda-linked group has financial muscle, too, as is collects millions of dollars in tariffs and payoffs to finances its operations, according to a United Nations Security Council report from last year. The group has been moving this money through Somalia’s banking system and is investing in local businesses and real estate.

Former President Trump, in the waning days of his term, announced an abrupt withdrawal of the 700 American troops from the country, leading observers to worry the pullout would embolden the Shabab and push them to carry out more attacks against the weak but internationally-backed government.

UAE: The scramble for the Horn of Africa

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MEMO | The United Arab Emirates is waging a war for influence over the Horn of Africa.

Since the 2011 Arab Spring the United Arab Emirates has been taking an active role in a number of hotspots from Egypt, Libya to Yemen. The Gulf nation has spent $26 billion annually on its defence budget since 2016 and this is expected to increase to $37.8 billion by 2025, according to Research and Markets.

A growing security and war industry with military deployments abroad, US generals often refer to the Sheikhdom as ‘Little Sparta’. As of 2020, The UAE has military bases in Eritrea, Djibouti and Somaliland, which further indicates the importance of the Horn of Africa to Abu Dhabi. The region offers excellent access to the Red Sea, the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Aden, all of which are vital to the Emirates’ economic future as a global trading hub. The military bases ensure Abu Dhabi can see off threats to its interests and secure its influence over East Africa at a time when it is expanding its income streams away from the petrodollar.

The 2015 war in Yemen and the 2017 blockade of Qatar have seen Abu Dhabi take a more aggressive role in East Africa.

Countries in the Horn of Africa have by and large welcomed growing ties with the Arab World, but in 2017 following the breaking of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Egypt with Qatar, countries across the world were pushed to take sides.

Somalia

Although the 2017 Gulf Crisis now looks like it is coming to an end, the countries in the Horn of Africa have already paid the price for it. Somalia found itself at the unwelcome end of the dispute.

Like other Horn of Africa countries, the Somali government adopted a neutral stance towards the Qatar dispute. The UAE, however, saw Mogadishu as silently in the pro-Qatar camp and Abu Dhabi was not pleased.

In 2017, as President Mohamed Abdul lahi Farmaajo assumed office, reports circulated that Qatar and Turkey had funded his campaign and further claims of officials appointed to prominent positions within Farmaajo’s administration having ties to Doha and Ankara unnerved Abu Dhabi.

The Somali government alleges the UAE is now actively destabilising the country, accusing it of funding opposition forces. These suspicions intensified after Dubai Ports World, DP World, bypassed the central government of Somalia and signed a deal with the semi-autonomous region of Somaliland to develop and operate Berbera port. DP World even brought in Ethiopian investment and gave Addis Ababa a stake in the port.

Mogadishu declared the deal illegal and tried to block it by taking out a complaint with the Arab League. Somaliland leader, Muse Bihi Abdi, said Farmaajo’s government was declaring war by attempting to block the deal. Under the deal, Somaliland stands to get investments of up to $442 million and a separate agreement with Abu Dhabi to allow the UAE’s military bases in the region could bring in a further $1 billion, according to the International Crisis Group.

Decades of civil war and the presence of extremist groups makes Somalia a very fragile country, fears UAE involvement could harm the country are a cause of constant concern for Mogadishu.

Sudan

In 1989, Omar Al-Bashir, a military commander, launched a coup and seized political power in Sudan. By 1993, he declared himself president and his political party, the National Congress, became the dominant political force. The National Congress is Muslim Brotherhood aligned and as such was generally treated with suspicion by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. However, in the 2010s, Al-Bashir’s regime began distancing itself from the brotherhood in order to improve its relations with the GCC countries.

Closer relations with Saudi Arabia and the UAE had a price. In 2015, Riyadh formed a coalition to intervene militarily in Yemen. In 2011, the Yemeni government led by Ali Abdullah Saleh faced mass street protests known as the ‘Arab Spring’, the pressure would force him to step down in 2012. The power vacuum led to large parts of the country being taken over by the Iranian-backed Houthi group. The Saudi-led coalition aimed to crush the Houthis and declared war on them. Sudan became an important member of the war coalition.

In 2018, a popular uprising took place against Omar Al-Bashir and in April 2019 the military forced him from power. The military then formed a new government with civil opposition groups with the aim of transforming Sudan into a fully-fledged democracy and the UAE moved to minimise the potential damage to its interests caused by the revolution.

However, the fall of Al-Bashir means the UAE’s position in Sudan is not guaranteed and some fear the Emirates could try to subvert Sudan’s democratic transition.

Ethiopia

Ethiopia seems to have benefitted hugely from its partnership with the UAE, as the East African country has emerged as a big investment opportunity.

In February 2020, the UAE agreed to invest $100 million to support micro, medium and small scale projects across the country. Additionally, the UAE has pledged to build an oil pipeline between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which will provide the landlocked nation much needed energy.

Indeed this energy deal is possible after the UAE engineered a peace treaty between Eritrea and Ethiopia in 2018. The peace agreement was held up as an example of the UAE’s prowess. Ethiopia managed to gain these benefits while avoiding the polarising effects of the Qatar blockade.

In November 2020, armed conflict broke out in Ethiopia’s Tigray region between government forces and a powerful regional rebel army. The rebels’ leader openly accused the United Arab Emirates of carrying out a drone strike on Tigray, from its base in Eritrea, at the behest of Addis Ababa. While evidence has yet to emerge of the strike, it does indicate there is some local anxiety about the role Abu Dhabi might be playing in this potentially explosive situation.

Ethiopia could cause issues for the UAE and Saudi Arabia, as another close ally of the Gulf States, Egypt, has expressed anger at Addis Ababa’s dam across the River Nile. The Renaissance Dam built by Ethiopia reduces Nile water levels in Egypt, harming its energy, economic and environmental needs. Negotiations to find a solution keep breaking down and regional tensions are high.

The Horn of Africa is the playground for rising UAE aspirations and is a microcosm of what the UAE aims to replicate across the African continent. Much of this is driven by the decline of US influence globally, new regional alliances and powerhouses are emerging to manage international security. However, the UAE does not exercise total control over East Africa and is still in the early stages of developing its reach and influence. The Horn is full of flashpoints and the UAE could either help stabilise or destabilise the region.

Biden Administration Faces Mounting Pressure to Act in Ethiopian Conflict

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The Washington Free Bacon | Millions in peril of starvation in Ethiopia’s Tigray region

Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the State Department Thursday to demand the Biden administration take immediate action in Ethiopia to combat a humanitarian crisis that has left thousands dead.

The protesters called on newly confirmed secretary of state Antony Blinken to prioritize the deteriorating situation in Ethiopia where troops from the federal government—as well as troops from neighboring Eritrea and Somalia—have cracked down on the Tigray region. Protesters said immediate aid is necessary to prevent millions of Tigray residents from starving to death, presenting the days-old Biden administration with its first international crisis. Attendee Makea Araya said the crisis has placed millions in danger and displaced millions more.

“We need international actors, we need the Biden administration to take action and allow humanitarian access into the region,” Araya said.

The conflict puts millions of lives at stake and threatens the religious and cultural heritage of the world’s largest religions. Tensions between Tigray, a region in northern Ethiopia, and the federal government came to a head when Tigray’s leading political party refused to join the Ethiopian government’s new coalition in 2019. In early November, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into the region, sparking violent clashes with the region’s militia force. While the crisis has been raging for months, limited information has emerged about its true scale since communications have been cut off in the region and foreign media and human-rights watchdogs have not been able to access the region. Reports of the massacre of religious worshipers in a famous Oriental Orthodox church and violence across the region are mounting, however.

Selome Girma, a protester, told the Washington Free Beacon that 4.5 million people are in dire need of humanitarian aid and are being cut off from the outside world. Tigray has been plagued by several communications blackouts during the months-long conflict, which the government has blamed on cyberattacks. Girma said the United States should lead the way to break the embargo and allow outside observers into Tigray.

“We are asking the United States to please humbly try to get some sort of international investigation of what’s going on in Tigray,” Girma said.

She said religious and cultural history is also in danger of being destroyed in the conflict. The region is home to several major Christian and Islamic historic sites, including the site of the massacre in the Oriental Orthodox church, which is reputed to be the location of the Ark of the Covenant.

The State Department, which did not return a request for comment, has remained vague on how it will approach the crisis. The department has released a statement calling for foreign troops allied with Ethiopia to leave the region immediately. The administration, however, has yet to lay out a strategy in the event that foreign troops remain in the region. The statement also called for “full, safe and unhindered humanitarian access” to the region, but the administration did not elaborate on how it would ensure this access.

Blinken also tweeted about the conflict in November and briefly mentioned the issue during his confirmation hearing, saying that the United States needed to do more in Africa. He called for more humanitarian access and said he was concerned that the violence could destabilize the region.

Ferez Timay, a longtime Washington, D.C., resident who was born in Tigray, said the Biden administration must do more than issue public declarations.

“We want the Biden administration to act soon because as the hours go, the minutes go, it’s the difference between life and death for the people of Tigray,” Timay said. “We want the Biden administration to act right away.”

The White House did not return a request for comment.

Somali men ‘forced into Eritrean army’ under impression they were signing up for security jobs in Qatar

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The Telegraph | The men are thought to be being sent to Tigray to fight in Ethiopia’s civil war.

Anger is mounting in Somalia over allegations young men are being secretly recruited and sent to Eritrea to fight in Ethiopia’s civil war.

Three families told Reuters their young sons had officially been recruited by Somalia’s government to work in Qatar, only to later find out they had been sent to Eritrea and forced to serve as soldiers.

Ali Jamac Dhoodi, 48, told the news agency he thought his son was working as a security guard in Qatar to help prepare for next year’s football World Cup. But he said he was later told by Somalia’s National Intelligence Agency that his son had died in Eritrea.

“They showed me a picture from their WhatsApp and asked me, ‘do you know this picture and his full name?’ I said, ‘yes he is my son,'” Dhoodi, 48, said. “They said to me ‘your son died’. I cried.”

Others said their sons, who had originally been sent to Eritrea for military training, were sent to fight in the Ethiopian civil war. Mothers have led rare protests in the capital Mogadishu demanding to know where their children had been sent, and some lawmakers have written to Somali president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo asking for information.

“I heard that our children who were sent to Eritrea for military training have been taken and their responsibility was turned over to [Ethiopian Prime Minister] Abiy Ahmed to fight for him,” Fatuma Moallim Abdulle, the mother of 20-year-old soldier Ahmed Ibrahim Jumaleh, told The Associated Press.

“According to the information I gathered, our children were taken straight to Mekele city,” the capital of the Tigray region, she said. “You may understand how I feel, I am a mother who carried her child for nine months in my belly, that’s my blood and flesh.”

Eritrea is accused of involvement in the conflict pitting its neighbour Ethiopia’s federal government against the rebellious leaders of the northern Tigray region. Witnesses have accused Eritrean forces of massacring civilians and pillaging villages in the embattled region.

The United States on Thursday said it had pressed Eritrea’s government to immediately withdraw its troops from Ethiopia.

Somalian and Ethiopian authorities have denied Somali troops are being deployed in Tigray. Ethiopia and Eritrea have consistently denied reports of Eritrean troops fighting in the conflict, despite extensive Telegraph reporting and the video of an Ethiopian general pointing to the contrary.

The Qatari government responded on Friday by saying it condemned any false recruitment initiatives and urging relevant governments to investigate any abuses.

“The State of Qatar reiterates that any genuine offers of employment in Qatar will always come through official channels and approved recruitment agencies or Qatar Visa Centres,” it said in a statement to The Telegraph.

“We urge all individuals seeking employment in Qatar to confirm any offers they receive with these official channels or the embassy, prior to acceptance.”

Anger in Somalia as sons secretly sent to serve in Eritrea military force

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Ali Jamac Dhoodi thought his son was working as a security guard in Qatar, helping prepare for next year’s soccer World Cup. Then one day last April, officials from Somalia’s National Intelligence Agency arrived with $10,000 in cash.

They told him his son had died – not in Qatar, but in Eritrea, one of the world’s most secretive countries.

“They showed me a picture from their WhatsApp and asked me, ‘do you know this picture and his full name?’ I said, ‘yes he is my son,’” Dhoodi, 48, told Reuters. “They said to me ‘your son died’. I cried.”

They gave him the money, and told him not to ask questions.

Ali’s son was one of three young Somali men whose families told Reuters they had been recruited by Somalia’s federal government for jobs in Qatar, only to surface in Eritrea, where they were sent to serve in a military force against their will. Two other families said their sons had simply disappeared.

The apparent secret recruitment of young Somali men for a fighting force in Eritrea is stirring public anger in Somalia, a poor country where opportunities to work abroad are eagerly sought. Protests erupted last week in the capital Mogadishu and in the towns of Guriel and Galkayo over the missing recruits.

Reports that Eritrean forces have taken part in fighting that broke out in November last year in neighbouring northern Ethiopia – which Eritrea and Ethiopia strongly deny – have led some Somalis to worry their sons may have been sent there.

Asked if Eritrea had recruited Somalis, trained them or sent them to Ethiopia, Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Meskel told Reuters: “This is ludicrous … There is massive disinformation floating around.”

Somali government spokesman Mohamed Ibrahim and Information Minister Osman Dube did not respond to requests for comment on the Somali government’s apparent role in the recruitment, but Ibrahim said no Somalis had been sent to Ethiopia.

The leaders of Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea have been drawing closer together since 2018, after a change of leadership in Ethiopia. Ethiopia and Eritrea, once archenemies, signed a peace deal and have regular high level visits. Somalia – which once accused Eritrea of supporting Islamist rebels – now has friendly relations with its president.

‘A BULLET IS THE REPLY’

Hussein Warsame said his son Sadam, 21, had been recruited for a security job in Qatar in October, 2019. Nothing was heard from him for more than a year. Finally, last November, he phoned from Eritrea.

“We were all shocked to land in Eritrea. We thought we were being flown to Qatar,” he quoted his son as telling him. “Dad, there is no life here, I have not seen food save a lump or slice of bread since I left Somalia in 2019, and when recruits demonstrate or reject orders, a bullet is the reply.”

Sahra Abdikadir, whose son Aqil Hassan Abdi disappeared in 2019 under similar circumstances, told Reuters that he had called in January and said he was in a camp in an unknown location in Eritrea.

Eritrea, a heavily militarised society, has never held elections, has no independent media and forces its citizens into indefinate government service. Former guerrilla leader Isaias Afwerki has been president since 1993.

Somalia has had only limited central government rule since 1991.

Both countries have a history of decades of conflict in the Horn of Africa region, often involving their much larger neighbour Ethiopia.

A regional security analyst who asked not to be identified told Reuters he had learned from conversations with Somali security officials that about 1,000 Somalis had been recruited and taken to Eritrea in at least three groups. One group had returned to Somalia, the second group was unreachable and the third was still in Eritrea.

Reuters was unable to confirm those details.

Parents of Somali soldiers fear sons fighting in Ethiopia

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Mogadishu (AFP) | Somalia is under growing pressure to explain the fate of soldiers whose families fear they were secretly deployed from training camps in neighbouring Eritrea to fight in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.

The government has strenuously denied allegations that Somali troops were sent to battlefields in Tigray, where Ethiopian federal troops have been fighting with regional forces since November.

But some lawmakers have written to Somalia’s president appealing for information on behalf of desperate parents who say their sons in uniform have gone missing, and they have reason to believe they could be in Tigray.

Hussein Ibrahim said his son was told he was going to Qatar for training, but wound up in Eritrea.

“I last spoke with my son 22 days ago. He told me he was fine but concerned, because some of his comrades were relocated from the camp and he didn’t know to where,” he said.

“I don’t know who to ask about his fate. There are reports everywhere that those taken to Eritrea were sent to fight in Ethiopia, and that some had died.”

Information minister Osman Abukar Dubbe on January 19 said “there were no Somali troops fighting in Tigray, and no such request made by the Ethiopian government”, describing reports to the contrary as “propaganda”.

– ‘Alive or not’? –

But the whereabouts of the missing soldiers remains unclear, and the plight of their families has struck a chord in Somalia and raised difficult questions for politicians preparing for a fraught national election which had been scheduled for next month but is beset with delays.

“We need the Somali president to hear our appeal, and tell us if our children are alive or not,” said Fadumo Moalim Abdulle, who believes her son was sent to Eritrea after being told he was going to Qatar.

In a letter dated January 18, the foreign relations committee asked President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known by his nickname Farmajo, for “details about the number of soldiers in Eritrea for training, and when they are coming back to the country”.

“We also understand that many parents have not been able to contact their children for some time, only to hear they were killed fighting in Tigray with government forces,” the letter stated.

“Confirm where these soldiers are now, and put them in touch with their parents.”

A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that some recruits were sent to Eritrea for training “but these reports about Somali soldiers sent to Tigray are baseless”.

But Abdisalam Guleid, a former Somali deputy spy chief, told AFP that “Somalia had indeed entered the war, and that many soldiers had died,” citing intelligence from Ethiopian counterparts.

– ‘Hush hush’ –

After three weeks of fighting, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared victory in late November against the TPLF, the ruling party in Tigray, after the army captured the regional capital Mekele.

But the TPLF leadership remains on the run and has vowed to fight on. Thousands have died so far in the conflict, according to the International Crisis Group.

The fighting has raised concerns for stability in the wider Horn of Africa, with fears that Ethiopia’s neighbours could be dragged into a regional conflict.

Ethiopia last week denied the presence of Somali troops in Tigray, and continued to dismiss witness accounts of Eritrean involvement in the conflict.

“Ethiopia has never invited any of the neighbouring countries or others to be part of this conflict. This is an internal matter; the Ethiopian army has done it by itself,” said Dina Mufti, spokesman for Ethiopia’s foreign affairs ministry.

In December, the US State Department said it was “aware of credible reports of Eritrean military involvement in Tigray” and called for their withdrawal. This month the state-affiliated Ethiopian Human Rights Commission accused Eritrean troops of looting in Tigray.

Abiy won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 in large part for initiating a rapprochement with Eritrea, whose President Isaias Afwerki and the TPLF remain bitter enemies.

Abiy also forged a three-way regional security arrangement with Eritrea and Somalia.

Analysts say it is plausible small numbers of Eritrean-trained Somalis were sent to Tigray, given Eritrea’s long history of using regional forces under its tutelage for its own strategic gain.

“What’s clear is that troops have gone to Eritrea. Some have come back. But the government has never given any details about these troops, not even their numbers or the fact there are cohorts,” said one regional security analyst, who asked not to be named.

“It’s all hush hush.”