By Faisal A. Roble
Introduction
This essay is based on two unpublished manuscripts on the Political Economy of Intervention and Historical Injustices against Somalis. I will argue that intervention in the Horn of Africa Region is a colonial function and has roots both in African enslavement and subsequent colonization. Beginning with the 1884 Berlin Conference, who’s driving force was the search for resources by the West, past and present interventions in the region have disproportionately affected Somalis.
In broader terms, the subject of foreign intervention in Africa has three timelines. First, between 1760 and 1840, modern intervention started to exploit Africa’s human resources in the form of slave labor. This phase culminated in the infamous 1884 Berlin Conference – the Scramble for Africa – which was sponsored by European imperialists. Dividing organic African communities, Europeans gerrymandered the continent to serve their purpose. At the closing of the 19th century, Somalis lost their national unity and emerged as British Somaliland, Italian Somaliland, French Somaliland, and the Ogaden region under Abyssinia. On the other hand, Abyssinia expanded its limits just as GB, France, or Germany did.[1] From colonialism, Africa inherited the export substitution model of economic development – a model that is detrimental to Africa’s progress to this day.
The second phase of intervention was during WWII, which left Africa with unhealing scars while at the same time pushing it towards liberation.[2] On the one hand, the weakened colonial powers could no longer hold their African empires so they had to leave. By designing artificial states, Westminster engineered the current geographic states which African ended up with.[3] Once again, the Westminster colonial craftsmanship left Somalis with even deeper scars while rewarding the lone empire in the region- Ethiopia, with the latter ending up as the beneficiary of annexing the Haud and Reserved Area of the Somali Ogaden region, of course with the approval of the Allied Forces and the United States of America.
The third iteration of foreign meddling in the HoA affairs is now spearheaded by middle eastern countries. This last iteration of intervention is unique, vicious, and is managed at the top by more cunning rulers who are neither Africans or Europeans with the following attributes. Middle Eastern interventionists have the propensity to finance corrosive and obstinate proxy wars. For example, the involvement of the Wagner Group and foreign military influence, notably from the United Arab Emirates, risk deepening the rivalry at the core of Sudan’s crisis, writes Global Conflict tracker.
Colonization and Underdevelopment
In the words of Walter Rodney, Africa’s underdevelopment is the result of the West’s search for maximum development at the expense of Africa.[4] To which Ali Mazrui added that Africa is rich in resources and poor in technology and good governance, whereas conditions in the West are the opposite- poor in resources but rich in technology and good governance, thus enabling the West to exploit Africa’s resources.[5]
In response to the imbalance between Africa and the West, thus underscoring the continent as a resource rich geography, Mazrui called it “ the Garden of Eden.”[6] For example, Africa has 24% of the world’s agricultural land, but “imports a third of the cereals it needs, and 64% of the wheat it consumes. Why then is the continent home to the most starving population? Add to that the Nile and the Zambezi rivers which could potentially provide enough electricity to the entire continent. Yet, it is the least electrified continent. Food production and ample energy should have propelled Africa to its own industrial revolution by now and its own version of green revolution. However, the stated 1997 Declaration of African Idusterialization and subsequent pledges to move the continent forward have thus far fallen short. It remains a depressing riddle why the children of the “Garden of Eden” are the most starving in the 21st century? Why does this rich continent depend on wheat imported from the cold country of Ukraine, a nation of 40 million people, and/or America’s grain rich prairie fields in the Midwest?
But Africa’s “Garden of Eden” was lost to colonizers. To this, the best historical description came from Kenya’s first president, Jommo Kenyatta, when he said the following, and I paraphrase it: When the white man came, he had the Bible and we had the land. But when he left us, we had the Bible and he had the land. Transferring land from the hands of Africa to those from land afar is a euphemism for a cultural and narrative domination by the outside powers over Africa.
The likes of Abdirahman Babu and Issa Shifji, both Tanzanians, Uganda’s Mohmoud Mamdani, and Walter Rodeney of Guiana tried to tackle the question of how to de-link Africa from the corrosive capitalist exploitation regain the fruits of its “Garden of Eden/” This team of scholars was part of the now defunct Darussalam (Tanzania) School of thought which belabored in the 1970s to find answers to Africa’s underdevelopment.[7] So did Colin Lyse, a British economist, with his vast study of capitalism’s influence in Kenya. Leyes’ argument is that as long as Kenya or any other African country serves a subsidiary role to multinational corporations located outside the continent, interventions and proxy wars are unavoidable.
Foreign Intervention and the Horn of Africa
A teaching case study of modern foreign intervention and its impacts can be gleaned from the 1977-78 Ogaden war. Pitting Somalia and Ethiopia, due to colonial legacy, for example, the Ogaden war saw the largest foreign intervention in modern African history. The entire Warsaw pact members came to Ethiopia’s aid. Outside the colonial era, this was the first and last time non-African states (Cuba, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Yemen, and others) offered boots on the ground in large numbers to an African conflict.
With the Ethiopian empire pregnant with a revolutionary sentiment, the political
discourse in the Horn of Africa following the Derg revolution was dominated by the question of
nations, nationalities, and self-determination. Partly responding to these conditions plus a longstanding dream to liberate the Somali region, the WSLF started its first military operations in the summer of 1976. For a short period of time, the Ethiopian Armed Forces were retreating to Harar and beyond. The Ethiopians were no match to Somalia’s strong army and the WSLF’s mobile and agile teams that knew every terrain, tree, and tract in the region put Ethiopian soldiers on their back foot. The speedy defeat of Ethiopian troops came in less than four months.
In the mid-1970s, Somalia’s army was considered to be one of the strongest and most professional forces in Sub-Saharan Africa to which Ethiopia was not a match, despite the latter’s inflated size. Also, aiding Somalia was a clear objective for the war, a commodity in short supply in Ethiopia in the 1970s. By February 1978, almost all the Western Somali region was liberated.
However, that victory was short-lived. Unable to stop Somalia, Mengistu invited and received military help from the Warsaw Pact led by the Soviet Union and the former East Germany. Thousands of well-armed troops from the Soviet Union, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Yamen, Libya, and Cuba descended into the Somali region forcing Somalis to abandon the territories they had liberated. Over 20,000 Cubans, including pilots, tank and heavy Russian armament operators, plus East German officers for training, were fielded to fight in the Ogaden war. In the end, over 1.5 million Somalis were eventually displaced following the then Soviet intervention in the Horn of Africa – a legacy to be remembered.[8]
The West sabotaged Somalia. Cyrus Vance Sr., who in 1977 was the Secretary of State for the US administration, and Andrew Young, US ambassador to the UN, established a forceful block, “the Africanist block” within the US diplomatic community. This block argued that if the US sides with Somalia against Ethiopia, leaders of the African continent and the Organization for African Unity (OAU) will disapprove of such a move. With the objective goal to stop Somali victory, these two cabinet members and others recommended to President Jimmy Carter that the US continue shipping weapons to Ethiopia knowing that the Soviet Union was also supplying both weapons and training to Ethiopia. Even hard-core republicans like Henry Kissinger, who otherwise would have taken a hawkish position on any country that befriends Communist Russia, gave Ethiopia a pass on this one. Because of such politics, the West let the East deploy massive weapons and manpower to help Ethiopia. The lone voice in the Carter administration to challenge Soviet intervention in the Horn of Africa was Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Advisor.
Whether the failure of the US to challenge the Soviets in the Ogaden war – at the height of the Cold War – could be construed as the beginning of the decline of the US supremacy remains to be seen.
Vagaries of Middle East Powers and the Horn of Africa
Today’s interventionists in the Horn of Africa come primarily from middle level powers (Middle Eastern countries). This new crop of interventionists are loaded with petro-dollar with an expressed objectives to control the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean) in search for [future] food production and markets; it is this very search that is causing proxy wars Whereas the United Arab Emirate is the most aggressive interventionist, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister is the most active agent client to this new force in the neighborhood. The UAE’s interference in Ethio-Somalia conflict is against African interests, reports the New York Center fo Foreign Affairs (NYCFPA).
The controversial and illegal January 1, 2024 MOU, which Ethiopia signed with one of Somalia’s regions with the blessing of the UAE, has put the region on the verge of renewed globalized conflict. This development is taking place right after the Tigray war, which killed about 1 million people, could restart once again. As long as Ethiopia’s autocrat is ready to supply soldiers for the long-term gains of his benefactor, the UAE princes promise to keep their fat wallets open.
Unlike the previous colonial era, interventionist Middle Easter powers are not interested in attempting to either transfer technology, help in education, or contribute enhancement of services but focus on achieving the goals through proxy wars. On the contrary, Middle Eastern countries directly deal with individual leaders by corrupting them through direct cash. According to Alex De Waal, cash is used for what he calls “political budget funds” toward buying political patronage in weak states in the Horn of Africa.[9] Such is the relationship between the prince of the UAE and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia. Prime Minister Abiy became a wholesale hostage to the UAE mainly to win his internal wars.
In conclusion, what was left of the colonial predicament of the Somali nation is now being gutted further by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s imperial ambitions and the UAE’s reckless and irresponsible politics. The concept of Somalia as a nation in search of a state and Ethiopia as an imperial state in search of a complete nation project plays well into the hands of those who want to intervene in the region. If left unchecked, “the coming war nobody is talking about” could ignite a powerful blaze in Somalia and Ethiopia as it already did in the Sudan. (see Afyare Elmi and Yusuf Hussein’s timely opinion piece.[10]
Africa has been and still is susceptible to outside interventions and perennial proxy wars. But it does have to be that way. Strengthening home grown regional institutions led by men and women of superior values can help Africa come up with a better development paradigm. Rethinking the AU, EAC, and other regional institutions could help minimize foreign interventions and maximize cooperation between Somalia and Ethiopia.
By Faisal Roble
Email: faisalroble19@gmail.com
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Faisal Roble, a writer, political analyst and a former Editor-in-Chief of WardheerNews, is mainly interested in the Horn of Africa region. He is currently the Principal Planner for the City of Los Angeles in charge of Master Planning, Economic Development and Project Implementation Division.
[1] Zakaria, Fareed, “Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlashes from 1600 to the Present,” New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company: (2024).
[2] Mazrui, Ali, The African Condition: A Political Diagnosis: (1980), University of Cambridge, New York.
[3] Samir Amin argues that the present states are the result of an artificial curve up of the continent, The Journal of Modern African Studies, 10, 4: (1972), pp 503-24.
[4] Rodney, Walter, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa: (1972), Bogle-L’Ouverture Publications (BLP)
[5] Mazrui, ibid
[6] Ibid, The African Condition
[7] Darussalam was part of Tanzania’s university where left-leaning students of Africa tried to unpack the nagging subject of Africa’s underdevelopment.
[8] Habte-Selassie, Bereket, Ed: 1982: Conflict and Intervention in the Horn of Africa, Monthly Review Press: pp. 129; 136-165.Nelson, Harold: (1982): Somalia: A Country Study: p. 34-36.
[9]De Waal, Alex, The Real Politics of The Horn of Africa: Money, War, and The Business of Power, (2015). Polity Press, Cambridge, UK. Also, see Crowford Young who discusses political patronage in Maputo Sesesseko’s Zaire.
[10] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/26/opinion/ethiopia-somalia-conflict.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytopinion) accessed on August 28, 2024
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