Djiboutian Civil War

[Jacaylbaro]

The Djiboutian Civil War (also known as the Afar Insurgency) was a conflict in Djibouti between the People's Rally for Progress (RPP) government (predominantly Ciise in ethnicity) and the predominantly Afar rebel group, the Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy (FRUD). This civil war broke out in 1991 as a reaction to the lack of Afar presence in the government (despite being the second largest ethnic group in Djibouti at 35%, behind Somali groups like the Cisse who comprise about 60%). FRUD signed a peace accord with the government in December 1994, ending the conflict. Two FRUD members were made cabinet members, and in the presidential elections of 1999 the FRUD campaigned in support of the RPP.

 

 

wikipedia.com

[Jacaylbaro]

In November 1991, the mainly Afar-supported Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy (FRUD) began fighting the Issa-dominated government of Djibouti (formerly the French territory of Afars and Issas), a small republic in northeast Africa on the south entrance to the Red Sea. Vying for power as the main ethnic groups, the Afars were in the north and west, and the Issas, related to the Somalis, were in the south. French peacekeeping forces were sent to help stop the fighting in early 1992; the Afar rebels then declared a unilateral ceasefire. But warring resumed in late 1992 near the town of Tadjoura, with dozens of persons killed and hundreds wounded. Under pressure, Djibouti's president, Hassan Gouled Aptidon (1916-), reshaped his government to form a careful balance between Afars and Issas in February 1993. The FRUD split apart because of disagreement over discussions with the government, which reached an agreement of reconciliation and peace with the principal FRUD faction on December 26, 1994. The constitution was revised, and seven FRUD leaders joined the government (1995). Some dissident FRUD rebels attacked and fought government troops in the north in 1997.

 

 

Source

[Jacaylbaro]

Peace Agreement Addresses Afar Discontent

 

 

UN Integrated Regional Information Network (Nairobi), 14 May 2001

 

DJIBOUTI, 14 May (IRIN)—The Djibouti government and the radical wing of the Front for the Restoration of Unity and Peace (FRUD) signed an agreement on Saturday, 12 May, which observers say aims to put an end to the uneasy aftermath of the Afar insurgency in northern and south-western Djibouti.

 

The agreement was signed by Djibouti Interior Minister Abdallah Abdillahi Miguil and FRUD leader Ahmed Dini.

 

In a speech delivered at the signing ceremony at the Djibouti Conference Centre, known as the Palais du Peuple, Dini said the accord was to enshrine peace in our political environment. Ahmed Dini led a three-year long Afar insurgency in northern Djibouti from 1991 to 1994, after which the moderate wing of the party signed an agreement with the government.

 

Djiboutian President Ismail Omar Guelleh attended the ceremony, and said the agreement would close a sad chapter in Djibouti’s history. The head of state pledged that never again will Djibouti experience another conflict of this nature and magnitude.

 

The two sides refused to give details of the peace agreement, but at a press conference held shortly after the ceremony, Dini told journalists that it was centred on decentralisation. He said the government had agreed to the setting up of more representative local bodies, and had promised to introduce an unrestricted multi-party system by September. Djibouti’s current multiparty apparatus is confined to only four registered parties, which included the ruling Rassemblement Populaire pour le Progres, and the moderate wing of FRUD.

 

Part of the deal involves the reconstruction and rehabilitation of areas and populations affected by the conflict, a local journalist told IRIN. International support—possibly from the European Union—would be sought for the demobilisation of FRUD fighters, the journalist said.

 

Dini did not rule out the possibility that some senior members of his organisation might join the Djibouti government in a pending cabinet reshuffle. Answering questions on the relationship of the radical wing with the moderate wing of FRUD, Dini said that, since the signing of the agreement, we are a political organisation fending for itself. Two leaders of the moderate wing of FRUD hold prominent positions in government, with Ali Muhammad Daoud as minister of agriculture, and Ougoureh Kifle Ahmed as minister of defence.

 

Local political sources told IRIN that the peace agreement ended 15 months of secret talks, which were a follow-up to an earlier peace deal signed by the Djibouti government and Ahmed Dini’s FRUD in Paris on 7 February 2000. Since the outbreak of the Afar insurgency, the government had pursued a reconciliation process with the two different FRUD groups, spanning about eight years of negotiations, the source said. The moderate FRUD group was the first to reach agreement with the central authority on 26 December 1994.

 

FRUD took up arms against the Djibouti government in 1991 to press the demands of the Afar—who constitute one of the country’s two indigenous ethnic groups. The radical wing of FRUD said the action was in protest against what it considered the hegemonic drive of the Somali-speaking tribes.

 

 

Source

[Jacaylbaro]

After independence from France in 1977, Djibouti was left with a government which enjoyed a balance between the two main ethnic groups, the Issa of Somali origin and the Afar of Ethiopian origin.

 

But the country's first president, Hassan Gouled Aptidon, installed an authoritarian one-party state dominated by his own Issa community. Afar resentment erupted into a civil war in the early 1990s, and though Mr Gouled, under French pressure, introduced a limited multi-party system in 1992, the rebels from the Afar party, the Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy (Frud), were excluded.

 

Thus, Mr Gouled's Popular Rally for Progress party won every seat and the war went on. It ended in 1994 with a power-sharing deal which brought the main faction of Frud into government. A splinter, radical faction continued to fight until 2000, when it too signed a peace deal with the government of Gouled's successor, Ismael Omar Guelleh.

 

 

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