First and foremost, it is important to note, that the colonization of the Ogaden region and the division of its people during the late 19th century is largely due to four expanding Empires: Great Britain, France, Italy, and their local agent Ethiopia (than called Abyssinia).
Among them the three imperial powers had on numerous occasions constructed boundary agreements partitioning Somali inhabited regions of the Horn of Africa without the knowledge or the consent of the people. During this period feuding European powers greatly increased Ethiopia's military capacity, partly because of European merchants who supplied Abyssinian forces with modern arms. In 1896, Menelik, emperor of Ethiopia, decisively defeated the Italian army at the battle of Adowa. Astonished by Ethiopia's military growth, Britain was anxious to purchase Menelik's neutrality in the division of the Somali regions. Therefore in 1897 Britain concluded border agreements with Menelik, handing over large areas of the British Somaliland (Ogaden) protectorate to Ethiopia.
However, in 1936 Italy successfully invaded and occupied Ethiopia along with the Ogaden region, thus undoing the border agreements in which Britain had just concluded with Ethiopia. Shortly afterward, in 1942 Britain restored Ethiopia's sovereignty, but retained administration of the Ogaden. In 1946, Ernest Bevin, then British Foreign Secretary, proposed that “British Somaliland, Italian Somaliland, and the adjacent part of Ethiopia, should be combined together as trust territory, so that the nomads could lead their frugal existence”.
This proposal failed, and in 1948, after transferring large parts of the Ogaden, the British withdrew from the Ogaden, allowing the Ethiopian empire to seize the remaining parts. Since then, successive Ethiopian governments have used polices of terror and repression to deal with the people of the Ogaden, and to towards the countless independence movements which have sprung up in response to the illegal transformation.
ADDITIONAL READING:
The Ogaden War: An Analysis of Its Causes and Its Impact on Regional Peace on the Horn of Africa
REPORT ON THE FINDINGS FROM THE UN HUMANITARIAN ASSESSMENT MISSION TO THE SOMALI REGION: ETHIOPIA
U.S. Senators Letter Regarding the Situation in the Ogaden
The Ogaden Conflict: A Colonial Heritage Introduction.
Independent Africa has witnessed inter- and intra-state conflagrations many of which had their roots in the arbitrary and reckless drawing of borders by the departing colonial powers. Africa before the advent of colonialism consisted of a large number of independent states. Some of these states were large and powerful; others were smaller and weaker. When the Europeans finished drawing their lines of partition during the Berlin Conference, these states were condensed into about 50 pieces of territory all of which came under European colonial rule.
The indiscriminate partition brought different ethnic groups (tribes) under one or more colonial power. This situation disrupted the political development of these societies; furthermore, ethnic groups were fragmented. For example, Nigeria under colonial rule brought more than a hundred ethnic groups into the colonial unit. This colonial sphere included the theocracies of Northern Nigeria, the Chiefdoms of the Yoruba and the Ibo in the East. Colonial Tanganyika consisted of more than a hundred ethnic groups. The fragmentation of one or more ethnic groups among two or more colonial powers created a situation very akin to slavery. Families were forcibly separated into two or more groups; each group under a colonial power spoke a different European language. Consequently, this situation laid the foundation for present tribal disputes, or at least contributed to the problem. Furthermore, Africa had become so atomized into smaller, conflicting groups that people readily identified themselves by tribe, ideology, profession, religion, and economic class.
Those conflicts that arose from the fragmentation of nations by the colonialists have often been internationalised, as the communities separated by the artificial boundaries found it hard to adapt to their new nationalities. They often became restless and many who found themselves attached to unacceptable units or states rebelled. And whenever they rebelled, they often pulled their kinsmen on the other side of the border to the conflict. And this, more often than not culminated in the participation of the concerned states.
While inter-state conflicts in Africa, as in the rest of the world have been minimized, largely as a result of international cooperation and the influence of international organizations, intra-state conflicts have been erupting in one hotspot after another. In fact, intra-state conflicts have largely replaced inter-state conflicts.
The horn of Africa has been a restive region for centuries. The region has been the scene of long lasting internecine conflicts. One of the most enduring and violent of those regional conflicts is the Ogaden conflict.
The Ogaden Conflict: A Historical Perspective
Ogaden refers to the Somali region of Ethiopia. Some people refer to it as Ogadenia and is largely inhabited by ethnic Somalis. The name ‘Ogaden’ is derived from the Ogaadeen clan which is the most populous there. But there is a sizeable population of other Somali clans, including Isaq, Hawiye, Garre and Dir. While the name ‘Ogaden’ denoting the region as a political unit has always been controversial, with the non-Ogaden clans rejecting it, it is an enduring name that has stuck since the advent of colonialism. Because of this controversy, other names have been used like Somaali Galbeed, meaning Western Somalia. However, the politically correct name given by Ethiopia is Zone Five but it is a name often associated with the unpalatable Ethiopian imperialism and has little international recognition.
In this paper, the name Ogaden is employed purely for convenience and lack of a better name with due recognition that the name is divisive and is not apt for the region.
The region, which is about 200,000 square kilometres, borders Djibouti, Kenya and Somalia.
Traditional Rivalry: Ethiopians and Somalis Imam Ahmed Gran (Gurey?) Ahmad Ibrahim (c.1507 – February 21, 1543) was an Imam and General of Adal who defeated several Ethiopian emperors. Nicknamed Gurey “the left-handed”, he embarked on a conquest which brought three-quarters of Ethiopia into the power of the Muslim (mostly Somali) Kingdom of Adal from 1529-43. “The Conquest of Horn of Africa” by I.M Lewis states.
Somali forces contributed much to the Imam’s victories. Shihab ad-Din, the Muslim chronicler of the period, writing between 1540 and 1560, mentions them frequently.
Imam Ahmed was born near Zeila, a port city located in northwestern Somalia, in which imam Mahfouz was governor. When Mahfouz was killed returning from a campaign against the Ethiopian emperor Lebna Dengel in 1517, the Adal sultanate lapsed into anarchy for several years, until Imam Ahmad killed the last of the contenders for power and took control of Harar.
In retaliation for an attack on Adal in 1527-8 by the Ethiopian general Degalhan, Imam Ahmad invaded Ethiopia in 1529 and again in 1531, breaking Emperor Lebna Dengel’s ability to resist in the Battle of Amba Sel. When the Imam entered the province of Tigray, he defeated an Ethiopian army that confronted him there and reached Axum, the nerve centre of Abyssinia.
The Ethiopians were forced to ask for help from the Portuguese, who landed at the port of Massawa on February 10, 1541 in the reign of the emperor Gelawdewos. This force was led by Christovao da Gama.
Da Gama was killed after being wounded in one of the major battles
however, on a revenge mission, the Portuguese killed imam Ahmad in 1943.
In Ethiopia the damage which Ahmad Gurey did has never been forgotten. Every Ethiopian highlander still hears tales of Gurey in his childhood. In northern Ethiopia, villagers still point out sites of forts, churches and monasteries destroyed by Gurey as if his military escapades happened just two or three decades ago.
This historical enmity between the two nations never really stopped. Halted temporarily sometimes by the seesaw of power balance, it always roared back to life. It always restarted before it really stopped. And whenever it flared, it inevitably sucked third parties into its depth. Turks, Arabs, Portuguese, Cubans, Russians; it was always an international war.
Another major chapter of this historical conflict, and equally as international as the previous ones, was during the colonial period when “The Mad Mullah”, Sayyed Mohamed Abdulla Hassan, an ethnic Ogaadeen waged a multi-pronged war against the colonial powers. For almost quarter of a century, the Sayyed led a tenacious campaign against Britain, Italy and Ethiopia to liberate all Somali country. Despite the material superiority, the Sayyed often humbled the three colonial powers. In fact, the British almost always got a bloody nose in their encounters with the Sayyed’s Dervishes until finally they broke his back with an aerial campaign in 1920. Some historians say he was the first African freedom fighter to force the imperialists to resort to aerial warfare.
Aden Hassan writes on topical issues in the Islamic world and the Horn of Africa region.
