by Guy Arnold
SOMALIA
The Somali coastline of 3,025 kilometres is the longest in Africa and facing onto both the Gulf of Aden at the entrance to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean has enormous strategic significance. The oil supply from the Arab world passes Somali waters, either en route for the Suez Canal or for the Cape. Its three land neighbours were French Somaliland, Ethiopia and Kenya, each of which occupied territory that Somalia claimed. The most fertile region of arable land lies in the south along the Shibeli and Juba rivers, while the area between them is permanently irrigated to allow extensive and continual agricultural production of bananas, sugar and maize. The Somalis are a Hamitic people, related to the Galla, Danakil and Afars of Ethiopia, although Bantu influence is important in the riverine region in the south. However, 75 per cent of the people are nomads moving constantly with their herds in search of seasonal pastures, and this movement, which had encompassed large tracts of land outside the boundaries of the modern state that came into being in 1960, lay at the root of the Somali ‘problem’.
Between 1950 and 1960 (when British Somaliland and former Italian Somaliland, which had become a UN Trusteeship territory after the war, were joined to form the Somali Republic) little development had taken place. During the first decade of independence, Somalia was one of the rare democracies in Africa, although the political system gradually deteriorated until by the end of the decade the system had been reduced to near anarchy. ‘At the time of independence in 1960, Somalia was touted in the West as the model of a rural democracy in Africa. Tribalism and extended family loyalties and conflicts were the core of the government, and by the late 1960s more than 60 parties campaigned for election to a Parliament of 123 seats. Democracy had degenerated into anarchy. Somalian corruption astounded even Afrophiles. The last Prime Minister was playing roulette in Las Vegas at the time of the national uprising led by General Mohamed Siad Barre in October, 1969.’10
An aspect of Somali behaviour that constantly causes outsiders to pause is the readiness of its clans to fight each other when few peoples in Africa have a more obvious basis for national unity than the Somalis. ‘It is a very homogeneous population, both ethnically and religiously, which makes for a nationalism quite unusual in Africa. Ninety per cent are of the Somali ethnic group (Hamitic), which has a strong sense of cultural identity despite internal (clan) distinctions.’11 Too often, however, in the years that followed independence clan differences threatened the unity of the country rather than racial homogeneity binding it together.
In the immediate aftermath of independence, despite differences between north and south, the national unifying factor was the Somali desire to achieve its dream of Greater Somalia that would embrace the areas of neighbouring territory traditionally seen as Somali lands, and this made for dangerously explosive relations with both Ethiopia and Kenya. These Somali pressures for territorial aggrandisement, exerted through the 1960s, had no success: there were border incidents and confrontations with Ethiopia, a guerrilla war along the border with Kenya, while in French Somaliland the voters rejected independence which the pro-Somali faction favoured. At least in 1967 Prime Minister Ibrahim Egal changed policy and sought a détente with both Ethiopia and Kenya, leading the three countries to embark on a series of talks to find a settlement. Internally, however, growing differences began to divide the country so that for the 1969 elections 1,000 candidates representing 68 parties contested 123 seats. The Somali Youth League (SYL), which was the best-organized party and had dominated the country’s politics since independence, won the election and Egal was again appointed Prime Minister. Then virtually all the opposition members joined the government in pursuit of office. Shortly thereafter Siad Barre seized power in a coup.
If we examine political developments through the 1960s it soon becomes clear that internal affairs took second place to Somalia’s irredentist claims against its neighbours. The first Prime Minister, Dr Abdirashid Ali Shirmake, began well when on 13 August 1960 he described the government’s programme to the National Assembly: ‘The future of the country is linked up with a balanced, gradual, realistic and substantial economic development; it is so because, in the first place, if a nation’s economy is continuously dependent on foreign aid, she cannot be considered as really independent, and in the second place, because the realization of an effective social justice, intended to diminish the disparity between the different areas, categories and citizens is really the indispensable prerequisite for a well-ordered life and, above all, for establishing that sense of human and national solidarity which, more than any other political or juridical element, becomes a cement of union, brotherhood and peace.’12 Such high-minded sentiments about development and nationhood would all too quickly take second place to the more immediate problems of border confrontations. Heavy fighting between Somali tribesmen and Ethiopian troops occurred on the Ogaden–Damot border in December 1960, just before the New Year, when as many as 180 Somalis were killed and Ethiopian aircraft strafed several Somali villages. In a speech at Hargeisa in the north on 15 April 1961, President Aden Abdulla Osman responded angrily to an Ethiopian broadcast that claimed no one had turned out to meet him on his tour; he went on to say that so far only two of the five Somali territories represented by the five-pointed star on its flag had as yet been unified and that there should be no relaxation of Somali efforts to achieve the freedom of the remaining three territories. He concluded his speech by calling upon Ethiopia to allow Somalis in the Ogaden to determine their future.
In November 1961 the National Assembly warmly supported and welcomed the request of the population of the NFD of Kenya to seek to obtain the union of that region with the Somali Republic before the independence of Kenya. In February 1962 the Somali Embassy in London, on the authority of the Prime Minister, stated that Somali claims for unity were based on religious, ethnic and other ties, but it was also important to remember the necessity for an effective and democratic system of government for all countries. In the light of living conditions and grazing needs of the Somali people, only a Somali government was capable of affording such a system to any Somali community. The people and government of the Somali Republic supported suitable forms of African unity. At the same time they were satisfied that African unity as a whole could make but little sense unless there was reasonable homogeneity in each state within a larger Federal system.13 In the years that followed Somalia was to find little support for its stand among other African states.
Meanwhile, it had made its position all too clear to its two principal neighbours, Ethiopia and Kenya. In September 1962 the Somali News attacked the United States for giving military aid to Ethiopia and claimed that between 1954 and 1962 US$107.3 million was earmarked to help African nations ‘almost entirely for the maintenance of internal security or internal stability of the newly emergent nations of Africa’ but of this US$67.4 million had gone to Ethiopia. In the summer of 1962, Jomo Kenyatta who had finally been released from detention in mid-1961 to assume the leadership of the Kenya African National Union (KANU) had visited the Somali Republic (26–30 July). Replying to a farewell speech by the Somali Prime Minister Shirmake, who had raised the question of the NFD Somalis joining the Somali Republic, Kenyatta said: ‘I might as well say that we and especially KANU regard the NFD as part of Kenya. We also regard Somalis in Kenya as our brothers. They are part and parcel of Kenya and we will like them to live in Kenya in that fashion. They have lived there for many years and there has never been any quarrel or any friction between the people of the other groups in Kenya, between them and the Somalis who live there… this being a domestic affair of Kenya.’ He could not have made Kenya’s response to Somali demands any more straightforward.14 At the end of 1962, as Somalia continued to mount pressures upon Kenya, Masinde Muliro, the Vice-President of the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) and Minister of Commerce and Industry in the pre-independence coalition government with KANU, said: ‘No matter what the Northern Frontier Province Commission reports, this Government will never
allow the province to join Somalia. This is not the time to start dismembering Kenya, and if the present colonialists were to allow secession we would declare war to regain the territory immediately after uhuru.’ The Somali government protested to the British government at this and a similar statement by Tom Mboya, the general secretary of KANU and Minister of Labour. Once it was clear that Britain supported the Kenya stand Somalia broke diplomatic relations with Britain (12 March 1963). On 14 March, still nine months before Kenya’s independence, Kenyatta, who by that time had become Prime Minister, said that he would not contemplate ‘any secession or handing over of one inch of our territory’. Kenya became independent on 12 December 1963 and over the next three years to December 1966 the Kenyan government estimated that casualties in the border war with Somalia came to 1,650 Shifta bandits killed, 69 Kenyan military and police personnel and 500 Kenyan civilians. The economic burden for Kenya of policing the area over this period had been considerable.
Fresh border fighting between Ethiopia and Somalia occurred in February and March 1964. In July 1964 the OAU meeting in Cairo ruled that member states’ ‘present [existing] frontiers should be maintained’. The Somali National Assembly, however, decided that Somalia would not be bound by this policy and after much debate said that the OAU resolution ‘is in no way binding on the Somali Republic or applicable to the present disputes the Somali Republic has with Ethiopia and Kenya’. In 1965 at the United Nations the Somali representative raised the issue of French Somaliland on the grounds that France refused to allow the people of that territory to proceed to independence and exercise their right to self-determination.
A major political change took place in 1967 when the former Prime Minister, Shirmake, became President and Mohamed Ibrahim Egal became Prime Minister. He switched Somali foreign policy from a virtual state of war with her neighbours, coupled with resentment of the Western powers, to a policy of peaceful co-existence. Egal accepted mediation by President Kaunda of Zambia in Somalia’s disputes with its neighbours and a period of easier relations followed. Kenya lifted its trade ban on Somalia following the Arusha agreement brokered by Kaunda and in January 1968 the two countries restored diplomatic relations.
In 1968 Egal launched the 1968–70 Development Plan, which concentrated outlay upon the public sector with 70 per cent of expenditure going to infrastructure projects. But the continuing erosion of democracy, rising levels of corruption and a weakening of the judiciary all suggested a coming crisis and this was sparked off by the assassination of President Shirmake on 15 October 1969. When Prime Minister Egal returned from an official visit to the United States to secure the election of a new president favourable to his interests the army stepped in on 21 October and carried out a bloodless coup. A radio announcement by the military stated: ‘In view of the maladministration of the country and the violations of the established laws in the country, such as the constitutional laws, and in the administration of the Civil Services which endangered the existence of the nation and were due to the mischievous and bad practices of the so-called responsible authorities, the National Army, supported by the police, this morning at 0900 Mogadishu time, took over the administration and political power of the country.’ A 25-man Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC) under chairman Gen. Siad Barre announced its goals: the suppression of tribal (clan) divisions and nepotism and the establishment of scientific socialism. The government moved sharply to the left and a policy of nationalization was announced. The new regime said it would adapt scientific socialism to the needs of Somalia and drew heavily from the traditions of Communist China: ‘volunteer’ labour planted and harvested the crops, and built roads and hospitals, and in May 1970 all foreign banks, oil companies, electricity and sugar companies were nationalized. Barre said that full compensation would be paid but that it was time for Somalis to take over. An entirely new script for the Somali language was introduced. West Germany and the United States suspended aid to Somalia and though they claimed they were doing so because of new links Somalia had established with East Germany and Vietnam respectively, the real reason was their objection to Barre attempting to develop economic independence.
SUDAN
The North-South divide became central to Sudanese politics even before independence. The Southern Army Mutiny of 1955, on the eve of independence, represented the culmination of growing Southern suspicion of Northern intentions. The South, in any case, was ill-prepared for new political developments while the mistakes of the Northern political parties were the result of inexperience and ignorance of conditions in the South rather than of bad intentions. When in 1955 the Northern political parties agreed to consider a federal solution to overcome North-South differences the Southern representatives in parliament in turn agreed to the declaration of independence on 1 January 1956. For just under three years Sudan was to be ruled by a civilian coalition of the National Unionist Party (NUP) led by Abdallah Kalil (who soon replaced Sudan’s first Prime Minister, Azhari); the Mahdists of the Umma Party (UP) led by Sadiq al-Mahdi; and the Khatmiyya, led by Sayyid al-Mirghani. Elections in early 1958 were inconclusive, with the result that the country continued under a weak and increasingly divided coalition. On 17 November 1958, a coup was launched by the army, led by Gen. Ibrahim Abboud, and both Sadiq al-Mahdi and Sayyid al-Mirghani gave the new military regime provisional backing, with the proviso that they did not stay in power too long. The regime was to last for six years. ‘The military regime may have achieved in the North what was considered by foreign observers as stability during its first four years of existence. It was, however, a superficial stability, the price of which was oppression of political opposition and the imprisonment of a number of politicians, trade unionists, students and communists.’15 It did not have much success in the South. On 27 February 1962 the Ministry of the Interior announced the expulsion of all Christian missionaries in the Southern Sudan. At that time there were 617 missionaries in the whole of Sudan. The military government saw their activities as being political as much as religious and against the government. By 1964 the crucial question about the South was whether it should become independent or remain within the Sudan Republic. The Northern political parties opposed Southern independence. The new civilian government of 1965, led by the UP’s Muhammed Ahmed Mahgoub as Prime Minister, increased military operations against the Southern rebels (the Anya Nya) and decided that it would co-operate with those Southerners who favoured unity. ‘… the desire for separation arose as a result both of the colonial policy and of differences between the North and South, some of which are natural and some man-made. History, economic disparity between North and South, mistakes and blunders of inexperienced politicians and the activities of the missionary societies – each has contributed to the problem.’16
The divide between North and South in Africa’s largest country has highlighted other problems than the strictly national one of unity. Is Sudan a bridge between Arabic and English-speaking Africa, between Muslim and Christian Africa, between Africa of the ethnic divide as opposed to the unified state? According to Ali Mazrui17 Sudan is less a bridge than a demonstration of how the chasm cannot be bridged. It is often forgotten that 60 per cent of the Arab community and 72 per cent of the Arab lands are in Africa and that one of Africa’s enduring problems is the need to reconcile the Arab North of the continent with the Black South. Arabs constitute the most important link between Africa and Asia while the Sudanese form the most important point of contact between Arab Africa and Black Africa. ‘There is first the very phenomenon of racial mixture and inter-marriage in the northern parts of the Sudan, coupled with the fact that a large proportion of Arab Sudanese are in fact Arabized Negroes, rather than ethnically semitic. For many of them the Arabness is a cultural acquisition, rather than a racial heredity.’18 It is not possible to discuss cultural differences between North and South without including the religious dimension and as Mazrui points out, ‘No other African country has been as closely identified with a schism between Islam and Christian
ity as the Sudan has been.’ Dealing with the factor of external Christian pressures in the South, Mazrui says: ‘Perhaps only the arrogance of a Christian press could describe a population which is only one-tenth Christian as being “basically Christian”. … Western commentators do sometimes assume that while it is fair game to let Christian missionaries loose among simple African villagers, it is sometimes approaching religious persecution to let Muslim missionaries loose within the same population.’ Prior to independence British policy sought to keep both the Arabs and Islam out of the South. The result was predictable: if the gap between North and South was to be bridged on the withdrawal of British rule, it was inevitable that the North would seek to break the educational and proselytizing monopoly which Christian missions had long enjoyed.19 Religion as a point of debate in Sudan is not to be avoided. A number of divisions separate North and South, including religion, and the experience from independence in 1956 to the end of the century would suggest that any capacity as a bridge that Sudan might have possessed has so far failed miserably.