Strategic Security Challenges: The Special Case of the Horn of Africa

[NASSIR]

Strategic Security Challenges: The Special Case of the Horn of Africa

 

Ruth Iyob & Edmond J. Keller

 

June 28, 2005

 

Editor's Note: Following is part I of a 3 parts on Somalia and the Horn of Africa region. Dr. Ruth Iyob is an Eriterian Scholar and a Political Scientis at the University of Misouri . Dr. Edomon Keller is former Director of the African Studies at UCLA and current chair person of the center for Global Studies. We will be featuring the contribution of Dr. Keller towards understanding Somalia-US relations as well as the whole question of the Horn of Africa region.

 

The purpose of this chapter is to critically assess the respective security challenges of the United States , the countries of the Horn of Africa, and the sometimes inter-connected, contradictory policies that have emerged in the era of globalization. Although such challenges are present in all parts of the continent, the greater Horn region has been singled out for special attention in this volume because of the high priority accorded it in the U.S. global war on terror. Globalization in the Horn is a multidimensional process with differentiated impacts on the region and the wider international state-system. This region is both linked and fragmented by its history and geo-strategic location as the bridge between Africa and the Middle East . Its contemporary hybrid nature—made more visible in the conflicts over identity, ideology, and resources—demonstrates the effects of long-term globalization with far-reaching regional and international repercussions.

 

During the first decade of the twenty-first century, the United States has selectively engaged with and disengaged from the countries of the Horn, all of which are also involved in intra-state and intra-regional conflicts. These relationships tend to be conducted mainly on the basis of considerations of real politik , rather than on an appreciation of the interface of their respective national interests with those of the United States . In the post–Cold War period, U.S. policymakers have adjusted their former focus on combating communism largely to accommodating the new threat of international terrorism. The older focus in the United States ' policymaking process failed to pay adequate attention to “the interplay of the regional, social forces at work at a given moment of history.†The collapse of the Somali state triggered the global dispersal of its people. The multiple crises in the Sudan , the unraveling of the Ethiopia-Eritrea alliance, and the insertion of Djibouti into the “war on terrorism†all indicate the need for a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the impact of globalization in the Horn. This chapter examines how the Cold War militarized both the states and societies of the Horn, and seeks to shed light on the complexity of the security challenges that characterize U.S.-African relations not only in the particular case of the Horn region, but also with the other regions of the continent in the first decade of the twenty-first century.

 

The Horn of Africa and the United States : An Introduction

 

Although the United States never had close relations with any African country (Liberia excepted), the onset of the Cold War and the strategic location of Eritrea and Ethiopia astride the Red Sea led to U.S. development of a strategic alliance with Ethiopia that lasted for twenty-five years. In fact, after the Second World War, Ethiopia became the cornerstone of U.S. involvement in the Horn of Africa. Following the Italian fascist occupation of Ethiopia , which lasted from 1936 to 1941, the British reinstated Emperor Haile Selassie and assisted him in administering part of modern-day Ethiopia until 1952. However, after 1943 British influence and involvement in Ethiopia declined rapidly. The Emperor systematically cultivated a relationship with the United States , and when the last vestiges of a British presence in Ethiopia disappeared, the United States stepped in as Ethiopia 's main superpower patron.

 

Beginning with the inclusion of Ethiopia in President Harry Truman's Four Point Program, a reciprocal relationship developed between the two countries. The United States was interested in gaining a strategic presence in the Horn, and Ethiopia allowed it to establish a naval base and radio tracking station at Asmara in Eritrea . The presence of the Asmara tracking station enabled the United States to improve its ability to monitor the telegraphic traffic in the emerging Communist Bloc countries to the northeast. Ethiopia in turn received economic and military assistance from the United States . In May 1953, two diplomatic agreements were signed formalizing the relationship between the two countries: The Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement and the Agreement for the Utilization of Defense Installations within the Ethiopian Empire. A significant by-product of this new relationship was the political support Ethiopia received from the United States for its claims to Eritrea in the aftermath of the War.

 

The United States ' desire to maintain its access and presence in the region of the Horn led to its becoming more deeply involved in Ethiopia 's domestic affairs than strategic planners had ever imagined. Thus, American policy concentrated on keeping Haile Selassie in power and on keeping the Horn relatively stable and free from communism. In this way, the strategic interests of the United States came to intersect historically with Haile Selassie's domestic and regional interests. A series of secret agreements between the two governments between 1960 and 1964 resulted in the modernization and dramatic expansion of the Ethiopian military. The stated purpose of this venture was to prepare Ethiopia to be able to respond successfully to whatever military challenge might come from independent Somalia , which claimed the ****** and Haud regions of southeastern Ethiopia .

 

The U.S. presence in the Horn has to be considered against the backdrop of the Cold War competition between the United States and the Soviet Union , particularly in the aftermath of the USSR 's pronouncement in the mid-1970s of the Brezhnev Doctrine, which established the Kremlin's commitment to support fledgling socialist states. Earlier, the United States and Ethiopia had held the balance of power in the Horn when the extent of armed conflict there involved armed militants in Eritrea and Somali irredentists, the latter aided by the Government of Somalia. In the mid-1970s, the USSR drew close to Somalia when the new regime of General Siad Barre proclaimed its commitment to governing on the basis of scientific socialism. Despite the United States' displeasure with the military junta that overthrew Emperor Haile Salassie in 1974 because of its gross violations of human rights, the United States felt compelled to “draw a line in the sand†against the expansion of communism in the Horn. The United States continued to maintain a relationship with Ethiopia despite its turn to the left under its new ruling military junta, the Derg. However, this changed with the election of Jimmy Carter to the American presidency in 1976. On assuming office, Carter did withhold military sales and grants to Ethiopia because of its human rights record. This in turn led to a severing of relationships between the two countries in April 1977. In the process the door was left open for the USSR to step in as Ethiopia 's main superpower patron. The United States countered by increasing its efforts to woo Somalia away from the Soviets.

 

From this point on, the United States saw its vital national interest as broadening its access and presence in the Horn. It actively considered direct military assistance to Somalia , though this assistance never became significant. What did become significant was the indirect military aid the United States provided via friendly third-party countries in the region (for example, Egypt , Saudi Arabia , and Sudan ). Also of significance was Carter's decision to pursue an encirclement strategy with regard to Ethiopia . This strategy was designed to provide countries surrounding Ethiopia with economic and military assistance, and thereby to hold communism at bay in the Horn. The United States asked Kenya, Egypt, Sudan, Somalia, and Oman to allow their territories to be used as staging grounds for the U.S. Rapid Deployment Force (RDF), which could be used to project U.S. military might into the Middle East and Persian Gulf.

 

In the process of pursuing what they perceived to be their own vital interests, the superpowers contributed to the escalation of a regional arms race in the Horn. While the United States and the Soviets competed for clients, the Ethiopians and Somalis stepped up their hostilities toward one another. Consequently, the military capacities of all the countries in the region, except for Djibouti , increased significantly between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s. What was also significant by the mid-1980s was the growth in strength and activity of the armed nationalists in Eritrea , the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), and armed opposition groups inside of Ethiopia and Somalia . This created a widespread sense of physical insecurity in the Horn, with devastating effects on human security in the region. Border tensions, civil wars, and the natural catastrophe of drought compounded the problems of Ethiopia , Sudan , and Somalia . The collapse of the Somali state demonstrated the multiple and deleterious effects of both the irredentist campaigns against Ethiopia and the civil war.

 

Shifting Terrains: The End of the Cold War and Political Islam in the Horn

 

The end of the Cold War was accompanied by the escalation of intra-state conflicts and an upsurge of environmental and humanitarian crises in the Horn. The events of the mid- 1980s and early 1990s amply demonstrated the political, economic, and social repercussions of the end of the Cold War on intra-state and intra-regional relations. In Sudan , the post-Numeiri regime signaled the death knell of the prospects for pluralist democracy and secularist government. Numeiri's successors, Suwar al Dahab and Sadiq al-Mahdi, cemented the coalition of traditional and radical Islamists, and they embarked on a foreign-policy path that relegated the United States to a secondary position vis à vis Sudan's new patrons in North Africa and the Middle East, Libya and Iraq, respectively. This course marked a defiant articulation of anti-Americanism that gradually culminated in 1996 in a break of diplomatic relations.

 

The regime of Sadiq al-Mahdi (1986–1989) was beset by the traditional rivalry between the two major sectarian parties and a civil-military coalition comprised of militant Islamists who until this period had been kept on the periphery of the political arena. Political assassinations and acts of terror became almost commonplace in Khartoum . Also, unrest raged in Darfur and the civil war in the South continued unabated in the absence of a real commitment to a just peace. It was during this period, 1986–88, that the tribal militias of the Baggara of the west-central part of the country—precursors of the now infamous Janjaweed militia who operate in the Darfur region—were formed at the initiative of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi.

 

The multiple crises that have engulfed contemporary Sudan —from the western borderlands of Darfur to the eastern Red Sea Hills and the war-ravaged southern regions —can be understood as the regionalization and internationalization of domestic problems long left unaddressed. A coup d'etat that took place in 1989 led to the establishment of a theocratic Sudanese state. On the one hand, the theocracy was a culmination of the long struggle of Islamists against local communists and liberal capitalists, and on the other hand, it indicated the opening of a new chapter of open animosity against the West in general and the United States in particular.

 

An escalation of violence in the late 1980s in Somalia between armed rebels and the government forces operating from inside as well as outside the country led to the collapse of the Somali state in 1991. As a result of treaties with the regime, the government forces as well as the various rebels groups all had access to arms from both the United States and the USSR . More than any other country of the Horn, Somalia demonstrates the negative impact of the Cold War's simultaneous militarization and globalization of local and regional conflicts. The post-1969 modernizing Somali state under Siad Barre “banned†ethnic and clan-based affiliations as ways of mobilizing political support. It introduced “scientific socialism†20 as the only official ideology, which led to resentment on the part of the majority of inhabitants who continued to practice traditional forms of eclectic, Sufi Islam. The dominance of the country's strongman, Siad Barre, stultified the fluid socioeconomic and political modes of organization and resulted in the alienation of Somalis, except, of course, those enjoying the favors of the ruling elite. A result of this societal disengagement was the economic and political exodus of Somalis to the Middle East and Italy. 21 The growth of the Somali diaspora and the community's exposure to the outside world led to the creation of expanded links between Somalis in the homeland and in the rest of the world, and in the process integrated all Somalis into the escalating process of globalization. This was done not only through remittances of foreign currency but also utilized modern communication technologies new ideologies and concepts of political alignment.

 

In fact, the large-scale migration of Somali workers to the Middle East and elsewhere from the 1970s until the early 1980s led to the growth of a remittance economy (much like that of the Sudan during the same period) and the emergence of a diasporic community with political clout. 22 However, the decline in the Middle East's oil boom led to a shrinking of remittances that had enabled many communities to survive while avoiding confrontation with the state. It was at this juncture that new converts to Wahabbi Islam through the Somali Diaspora clashed with the indigenous Ahmadiyya and Quadriyya tariqas (religious brotherhoods) to be later expressed as inter-clan conflicts. The north, historically linked to the Wahabbists because of the preponderance of adherents of the Salihyya (one of three Sufi orders that dominate Somali Islam and personified by the anti-colonial hero Muhammad Abdille Hassan who had studied in Saudi Arabia under Wahabbi tutelage) proved more amenable to the gradual Islamization of its society. Meanwhile, southerners viewed this revival of faith-centered conflict as a continuation of internal differences among Somalis. 23

 

The growth of Islamic charities, established by adherents to local tariqas as well as new Somali converts to Wahabbism , 24 loosened the hold of state institutions on both urban and rural communities. These Islamic charities proved adept at evading the reach of the state 25 and competed with Western NGOs, whose links with corrupt governmental institutions rendered them useless to the majority of impoverished Somalis struggling to survive on the margins of the state. Such factors created a new political space that linked Somalis to the outside world and highlighted their subaltern relationship to the West. They also displayed the potential for political renewal and religious redemption in the revival of Islam.

 

In an environment where the boundaries of the Somali body politic had been shattered by violence, chaos, famine, and the ineffective yet disturbing presence of foreign troops, Somalis divided along clan lines, ideologies, and religious tariqas throughout the 1990s. They were plunged into a Hobbesian world, where communities were turned against each other in the pursuit of power, resources, and legitimacy. Submerged historical conflicts, which had been subordinated to the larger goals of Pan-Somalism and nationalism, re-emerged with the collapse of state institutions and superpower patronage. Such forces had held the country together for three decades. The north-south divide—between the former British Somaliland and Italian Somalia—exploded into full force, bringing with it the religious-cum-clan cleavages that had characterized the two regions' relationship in the colonial and postcolonial period. 26 Thus the “globalization†of Somali political and ethno-regional conflicts was therefore accelerated by the UN-sponsored and U.S.-led humanitarian intervention in 1992. This resulted in numerous new security challenges for the Somali state, the region, and the international state-system. 27

 

By the turn of this century, thousands of Somalis had fled to neighboring countries, spilling over the country's borders and presenting numerous security and economic challenges to the host countries. 28 Inside the country Somalis did not fare better, as they were victimized by the arbitrary violence meted out by warlord-directed youth gangs known as Moryan , 29 which, like the Sudanese Janjaweed , vied for control of territory and resources. As the Somalis became ungovernable, their traditional modes of consensus no longer functioned, so too did the universalizing ethos of Islam prove unable to unify the nation. Islamists continued to succeed in communal reconstruction projects, but they did not attract international attention until the events of September 11, 2001 . Following this event, it was common for U.S. policymakers to consider all radical Islamists as security threats.

 

On September 26, 2001, Al Itihaad al Islami (The Islamic Union), which had been in existence since the 1980s, was put on the United States' list of terrorist organizations as well as the Somali company al Barakaat, a financial clearing house for diaspora remittances to the homeland using the age-old network of disbursement known as hawala. 30 It appears that policymakers lumped the Islamists together without regard to their objectives or actions as a “terrorist threat.†They proved unable to decipher the factors that would result in either the “fusion†or “fission†of Somali communities. 31

 

Somalia, lacking a political center and beset by vying warlords supported by their regional and international supporters, demonstrates a key feature of a highly globalized society where “political space and political community are no longer coterminous with national territory, and national governments can no longer be regarded as the sole masters of their own or their citizens' fate.†32 If Somalis cannot effectively lead their country out of this morass and if the United States and the international community remain unwilling to contemplate a new role other than a watered down version of encirclement by neighboring allies, they risk alienating Somali citizens inside and outside the country. In doing this, they lend credence to the call from militant Islamists for an Islamic alternative to Somalians' Hobbesian existence. It remains apparent that the key to reducing the multiple security challenges posed by an unstable Somalia lies within the Somali nation. American relations with other states in the Horn—notably Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, and Eritrea—also need to be conducted with an awareness of regional dynamics , particularly in light of the practice of incumbent regimes in arming dissidents from neighboring countries. 33

 

In Ethiopia , the reduction of Soviet aid to the Marxist regime in the late 1980s had gradually weakened the regime's capacity to win the war against the coalition of Ethiopian and Eritrean armed opposition groups. The regime took harsh reprisals against the Ethiopian officers who launched an abortive coup in 1989. The brutality against the coup makers had the unintended effect of turning the usually stalwart Ethiopian society against the regime's heavy-handed approach and fueled the wars in Eritrea and the central part of the country that had dramatically escalated in 1988–1989. The rural majority, from whose ranks were drawn the soldiery of the Ethiopian Armed Forces, quietly withdrew its support from the regime's unitary policies. Desertions became more frequent in the army as well as defections to one of the guerrilla groups with bases in the northern, central, and southern parts of the country.

 

The U.S. involvement in negotiations between the warring parties provided much coveted legitimacy for the Ethiopian and Eritrean guerrilla groups and altered the balance of power relations between the Menghistu government and its opponents. A number of factors contributed to the establishment of new regimes in both areas, and in the case of Eritrea , a new state. These included: (a) the demise of the Soviet Union and its attendant consequences for client states; (b) the guerrilla groups' abandonment of their anti-American ideologies; and © rebel success in holding on to territorial gains from which the Ethiopian army was evicted. Key agreements were reached between the Ethiopian government and its main adversaries, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) and the Tigrean People's Liberation Front (TPLF)/Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) in numerous negotiations held in the United States , the Middle East , and Europe .

 

In May 1991, the victorious armies of the EPLF and EPRDF marched into the capitals of Eritrea and Ethiopia , respectively, after having secured an agreement for post-war reconstruction U.S. assistance. The guerrillas' long experience in dealing with international aid agencies as well as with the representatives of both the United States and the USSR had provided them with knowledge of how to parlay their position as former so-called secessionists and terrorists to the laudable category of a “new breed of African leaders†now gaining influence on the continent. 34 Past recipients of Soviet largesse, they were now showered with praise as the saviors of their respective countries from both the old threat of communism and the new threat of Islamist terrorism emanating from neighboring Sudan. By 1991, it appeared that the lessons of the past, especially those learned from the cycles of U.S. engagement and disengagement, had been understood and applied to their respective “national†interests by the Islamists of the Sudan , the warlords of Somalia , and the guerrillas-turned-statesmen of Ethiopia and Eritrea .

 

 

Source: Wardheernews.com