Indigenous Issues in the Horn of Africa (fwd)

This message might be relevant to people who are following the
comments on the Horn of Africa.  We will be presenting an up-date on
the issues below in Washington, D.C. this summer during one of the 
PEWS sessions.  Many of you might only be interested in the 
introuduction and conclusion below at this time.


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2000 18:11:09 -0900 (PDT) 
From: atpll@IMAP1.ASU.EDU
To: Gunder Frank <agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Indigenous Issues in the Horn of Africa 




THE HORN OF AFRICA: LOCAL CONFLICT, GLOBAL ORDER?





        
Pat Lauderdale and Randall Amster
Graduate College, Wilson 376
Arizona State University
January 2000





Please do note cite or duplicate without permission of the authors


The Horn of Africa: Local Conflict, Global Order?
Pat Lauderdale and Randall Amster [January 6, 2000]
Introduction
        The relevance of a local-global perspective is obvious in 
Africa, and in particular in those countries comprising the Horn'  
Sudan, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somaliland and Somalia proper. 
The geopolitical climate today is influenced by local political and 
social conflicts not only in terms of specific internal histories 
and effects, but also their interaction with forces operating on a 
global level. Whether viewed in terms of the impacts of colonialism 
from an earlier era, or considered in relation to the burgeoning 
global influences of corporate capital and the international 
economic community, internal political and social conflicts in the 
African states cannot be understood without reference to pressures 
brought to bear by the forces of globalization. Indeed, it often 
appears that much of the internal strife particular to the region  
whether it be so-called clan wars', famine, repression of dissent, 
or military dictatorship  is a direct product of the combined forces 
of past colonialism and present globalization. Recent bombings of 
U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania can be viewed as stark examples 
of violent conflict in the region that was motivated by a disdain 
for Western policies and practices in the area (sentiments that only 
have intensified with U.S. retaliations such as the bombing of 
Sudan). Examining this complex relationship between external 
pressures and internal conflict is the principal aim of this 
overview of the Horn.
        The challenge here is to understand the political conflicts and 
abuses of power, not only in their internal sense as local phenomena 
unique to a particular state or region, but also as products of the 
historical processes of colonialism and the contemporary pressures 
of the global economic community. One common pattern in the 
countries of the Horn  while acknowledging the unique nature of the 
problem in each locality  strongly resembles the experiences of 
numerous peoples in other regions of the world: People indigenous to 
a region who have created particular cultural and economic practices 
over time suddenly find themselves confronted with a superior' 
military power from outside the region who claims entitlement to 
their land and resources. These indigenous people, once 
self-sufficient and culturally diverse, are either forced from their 
lands and relocated or are enclosed within a narrowly defined space. 
The people are then prevented from working the land for food or from 
moving over a wide enough area to graze animals or hunt-gather for 
sustenance; state lines are drawn by colonial administrators often 
without regard to cultural and ethnic boundaries; new problems and 
conflicts ensue, and eventually external, international relief' is 
mustered and delivered to the state apparatus as delineated on the 
colonial maps (see Frank, 1981, for an analysis of relief food as 
power). This relief is often appropriated by corrupt strongpersons, 
sold on the black market, or delivered to one (the dominant) group 
but not the others in the region. Competition over scant resources 
and food supplies exacerbates tensions among the many diverse groups 
in the region, some of whom were allies or trading partners before 
the colonial era. The international community recognizes a 
particular group in the region as the legitimate rulers or leaders, 
and in return for aid, relief, bailout' money, or military supplies, 
the international community plies the official leaders for access to 
natural resources for export, the opening of import markets in the 
region, and the development' of urban centers, technology, and 
industry based on the Western' model (Fanon, 1961; Merchant, 1992). 
Dissenting views are crushed and authoritarian statism is the order 
of the day (notwithstanding cosmetic overtures toward democracy' and 
rights'), famine and disease continue to proliferate, and clans' are 
blamed for the unrest. The only viable solution appears to be more 
development', more international aid', more exploitation of 
resources, and in general more of the state' as a paragon of order' 
in a region rife with conflict and lawlessness (see generally Zegeye 
and Maxted, 1997; Toggia and Lauderdale, 1998). Markakis captures 
the essence of this historical nexus between 
territory/land/resources and conflict, noting that the role of the 
state is a key variable in the process of conflict generation' 
(1998, p.3), and concluding that there exists a crucial relationship 
among exclusion from state power, reduced access to resources, and 
the level of conflict (see also Bestman and Cassanelli, 1996).
        In order to understand the parameters of the issue, it is important 
at the outset to maintain a sense of the historical relevance of the 
region. The Horn of Africa has drawn the world's attention since 
antiquity. In Africa's northeastern corner, facing the Arabian 
Peninsula, it has served as a primary point of contact between 
sub-Saharan peoples and the cultures of Western Asia and the 
Mediterranean region. The earliest Egyptian pharaohs had slaves, 
gold, and animals brought from the faraway South; their successors' 
dynasties later were deposed as Nubians swept up from that same 
Sudanese region to reign over a united Nile. The Land of Punt, 
today's Somali and Eritrean coasts, was a trading center for ivory, 
ostrich feathers, and myrrh for export north to the Mediterranean. 
Medieval crusaders sent emissaries to the fabled land of Prester 
John and his Christian Kingdom, now known as Ethiopia, entreating 
the king there to join in their war to win the Holy Land from the 
Saracens. Five hundred years later, in a challenge to the growing 
British Empire in Africa, the Sudanese forces of the Mahdi 
temporarily wrested Khartoum from its Anglo-Egyptian occupiers. The 
garrison's slain commander, General Charles Chinese' Gordon, was 
immortalized in imperial history as having tried to confront the 
forces of indigenous Sudanese fanaticism'. The world took note, more 
recently, as the Italian conquest of Ethiopia in 1936 sent a fleeing 
Emperor Haile Selassie on his famous but fruitless mission to the 
League of Nations to plead for assistance.
        In the last two decades, images of starving African children have 
been portrayed on television screens throughout the world. To the 
sway of We Are the World', Americans and Europeans in 198586 and 
again four years later were entreated by international celebrities 
to help relieve famine in Ethiopia, famine exacerbated under 
policies of international agencies and a dogmatic Ethiopian regime. 
In succeeding years the media focus shifted from diseased and dying 
Ethiopians to those in similar conditions within Sudan and Somalia, 
with relief efforts such as Feed the Children' prominently depicting 
graphic images of emaciated African children.
        The history of the countries of the Horn since independence' from 
European colonialism largely has been one of violent repression and 
insurgency. Regardless of how governments in the region came to 
power extralegally, in practically every case they have been 
dislodged by force. In almost forty years of post-colonial history 
in the region, the examples of one administration peacefully 
succeeding another after winning free elections are the exception. 
Therefore, it comes as no surprise that regimes that have seized 
power have tried to make certain that the rise of challenges to 
their supremacy from any quarter was prevented. Strongperson 
presidents prefer submissive legislatures, and often have ensured 
submissiveness by handpicking the legislative candidates. Since 
single-party rule is portrayed globally as undemocratic, the former 
single parties typically rig elections so that they will get at 
least a comfortable majority if not every seat. Judges assure their 
tenure by handing down predetermined convictions in political cases. 
Checks and balances' between the executive, legislative, and 
judicial branches of the state is a quaint concept at best. 
Moreover, independent organizations arising out of civil society 
have provided an ineffective counterweight to the power of chiefs of 
state and the circle around them. They are either banned outright 
and forced underground, or carefully monitored to make certain that 
they are apolitical.
        The existence of civil society' can have a profound influence on 
the governments and military regimes in the Horn. Such groups may 
organize by affinity (e.g., based on kinship, gender, age, work, and 
religion  including church groups, elder associations, youth groups, 
labor unions, and other voluntary associations), or merely 
temporarily gather, as in public demonstrations or private meetings 
to pursue common ends. The level of independence or autonomy of 
civil society usually is regarded as a significant indicator of the 
degree of democracy in a country (Oliverio, 1998; Gramsci, 1971). 
Gramsci makes a useful distinction between civil and political 
societycivil is characterized by private relations within private 
groups and organizations while political is characterized by the 
state's use of coercive force to shape society to conform to a 
particular mode of production. Gramsci, while writing from an 
Italian prison for ten years, tried to explain the encompassing 
tactics of fascists by noting the importance of understanding the 
war of position in terms of the role of the state in attempting to 
configure and control civil society.
        Nation-states that attempt to eliminate or control civil society 
often rely on authoritarian policies and practices. These 
authoritarian statist regimes, concerned with their international 
reputations, often try to give the illusion of a thriving civil 
society by creating their own official organizations specifically to 
mobilize the population in public support of regime-formulated 
goals. A related phenomenon of recent vintage is the so-called 
GONGO', or government-organized nongovernmental organization. Its 
task is to express public solidarity with its regime at 
international fora even while claiming to be a representative of 
civil society. The space in which civil society is allowed to 
operate often is determined by the extent to which rulers have a 
project other than maintaining their hold on power and assuring 
their opportunities for self-enrichment. In situations where 
officials limit themselves to these objectives, independent groups 
that do not challenge the status quo are often allowed to form and 
operate without significant interference by the state. Good 
citizenship under such regimes consists of dutifully turning out for 
show elections, but otherwise keeping out of political affairs, the 
exclusive preserve of ruling groups in the country. In other 
situations where rulers wish to entirely remake society along 
particular lines, little or no opening is permitted for citizens to 
freely organize themselves into groups of common interest. Only the 
state itself is permitted to create organizations. The intent, then, 
is not to depoliticize civil society, but to subjugate or eliminate 
it.
        Official abuse may worsen if people step forward to disrupt the 
deceptively calm atmosphere of authoritarian statism. Even where 
this opposition is nonviolent, people who openly challenge the 
policies or legitimacy of the authorities  or worse yet join with 
others to do so  face harassment, imprisonment, torture, or other 
forms of state terrorism (Oliverio, 1998). The regime will take 
whatever measures it deems necessary to protect itself and court the 
favor of external agencies. Those regimes heavily dependent on 
Western aid may institute cosmetic reforms such as creating facades 
of regulated elections, legalizing multipartyism, promulgating a new 
constitution, appointing compliant members of various religious or 
ethnic groups to visible positions in the government, or ratifying 
international covenants of human rights with no intention of 
implementation.
        This familiar scenario has been played out in varying degrees and 
with some important differences in every country in the Horn of 
Africa. The task here is to analyze internal conflicts in terms of 
the balance of power between civil society and the state in the 
countries of the Horn. Accordingly, we will review current and 
historical conditions in two of the territories in the Horn of 
Africa, seeking to draw attention to such issues. We hope to extend 
the perspective that elucidates the complex nature of the 
relationship between local conflict and internal dissent on the one 
hand, and the global processes and pressures of externally 
encouraged order' on the other.
I.  Eritrea
        Eritrea, a narrow country of 3.2 million extending from Djibouti 
west to Sudan along the Red Sea, won its de facto independence on 
the battlefield in 1991 after a bloody 30-year war with Ethiopia. It 
received recognition in April 1993 for its new status when an 
internationally monitored referendum delivered a resounding 98 
percent mandate for separation. In May1993, Eritreans celebrated the 
official birth of Africa's newest internationally recognized state. 
In the national euphoria that followed, few sights were as moving as 
that of Eritrean war veterans rocking back and forth in their 
wheelchairs in the middle of the street while singing compatriots 
danced around them. In 1997, the country introduced its own 
currency, the Nakfa. The name Nakfa comes from a Northern 
paramilitary base that became famous in the Derg-time war of 
liberation. President Issaias Afewerki (who was a rebel leader) 
stresses that the country needs foreign aid but does not want 
dependency.
        During the long insurgency, when pro-independence Eritreans were 
pressed to offer a justification for secession, most responded that 
Eritrea was a region related to, but distinctive from, Ethiopia. 
Much of Eritrea has been culturally and politically tied to the 
Christian Abyssinian highlands to its South since the first 
centuries A.D. Eritrea was detached in 1890 from Ethiopia when Italy 
colonized those portions of Africa left after the rest of Western 
Europe had satisfied its hunger for empire. Though Rome intended to 
push on to Ethiopia itself, it was thrown back in 1896 by the troops 
of Emperor Menelik II and forced to make the best of its retention 
of Eritrea. Fifty years of Italian colonization, coupled with later 
mistreatment at the hands of Ethiopian administrators and generals, 
ensured an Eritrean national consciousness.
        In 1936, Mussolini's overseas army made Italy's second attempt 
to extend its colony forcibly into Ethiopia, and this time it was 
successful. Until resident Italian forces were routed from the Horn 
of Africa by a patriotic liberation movement and the British 
colonial army in 1941, Eritrea and Ethiopia were administered as a 
single Italian colony. Eritrea was governed by the United Kingdom as 
a U.N. trusteeship until 1952, when, under United Nations auspices, 
it was federated with Ethiopia. Despite constitutionally guaranteed 
autonomy, for the next ten years under conditions of federation' 
State administrators in Addis Ababa suppressed a vigorous civil 
society, crushing the assertive Eritrean trade union movement. 
Ethiopia's Amharic, not native to Eritrea, was imposed illegally as 
the official language. Eritrea went on to lose its formal autonomous 
status in 1962 when Haile Selassie's government exerted heavy 
pressure on the Eritrean legislative assembly to approve the 
assimilation of Eritrea into a unitary Ethiopia. With its 
acquiescent vote secured, the Emperor got what he had always wanted: 
Eritrea as another Ethiopian province.
        Eritrean history, however, did not end there. The first armed 
independence movement in Eritrea, the Eritrean Liberation Front 
(ELF), had begun its armed drive for secession from Ethiopia in late 
1961. It drew its support largely from Muslims in Eritrea's western 
lowlands, who opposed incorporation into Christian-dominated 
Ethiopia. The ELF was gradually supplanted during the 1970s by 
another group, the more politically doctrinaire Eritrean Peoples 
Liberation Front (EPLF). The EPLF, whose leadership initially came 
from the western Christian highlands, accused the ELF of 
representing the interests of a conservative Muslim elite. By 
contrast, the EPLF followed a Marxist, class-based analysis of 
Eritrea's history and society that rejected any appeal to Eritreans 
based on religion, region, or ethnicity. Though the movement was 
dominated by those of Christian origin at the outset, the EPLF has 
evolved to reflect more of the religious and ethnic diversity of 
Eritrea itself.
        In 1974, Emperor Selassie was overthrown by the Dergue, an 
Ethiopian committee of military officers. Despite initial hopes to 
the contrary, it soon became clear to independence-minded Eritreans 
that the nationalistic Dergue was as opposed to a sovereign Eritrea 
as the Emperor had been. The new junta, soon to be headed by 
Mengistu Haile Mariam, was committed to retaining the Ethiopian 
province'. During the war that continued for the next seventeen 
years, military control of Eritrean territory shifted between the 
EPLF and the Dergue, with the EPLF gradually extending its authority 
until it controlled all but the provincial capital of Asmara, the 
Red Sea ports of Asab, Massawa, and some adjacent areas.
        During a series of peace negotiations, the Ethiopian government 
repeatedly stated that it might accept any political arrangement for 
Eritrea short of independence; the EPLF demanded a referendum within 
Eritrea that would have independence as one of its options. A 
political settlement seemed unlikely. Finally, even as an Ethiopian 
insurgent group allied to the EPLF moved in on Addis Ababa, the EPLF 
entered Asmara victorious after defeating the remnants of the 
occupying army within Eritrea. During the course of thirty years of 
insurgency some forty thousand Eritrean civilians had died, and over 
three-quarters of a million had fled the country. Upon overthrowing 
the Dergue, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front 
(EPRDF)  the EPLF's ally  stated publicly that it did not intend to 
stand in the way of a United Nations-sponsored referendum in Eritrea 
on independence. The challenges facing the EPLF, however, are great, 
including most notably the damage wrought by Ethiopia's previous 
aerial bombardments; whole villages were destroyed, a once 
sophisticated infrastructure built by the Italians was devastated, 
and a cycle of war-induced famine began. The EPLF also must 
facilitate the absorption of hundreds of thousands of Eritreans 
returning to rebuild their lives and country after years in exile. 
In addition, serious drought has occurred again in the region in the 
nineties. The government has estimated that it may need some two 
billion dollars to return Eritrea to the status quo prevailing when 
the British handed the territory over to Ethiopia in 1952.
        Apart from rehabilitation and development, a great challenge facing 
the EPLF is one of integrating citizens representing three religious 
traditions and nine major ethnic groups. The two areas of the 
country that pose problems, now largely quiescent, are the Afar 
Denkalia region in the south and the majority-Muslim western 
lowlands near the Sudanese border. The traditional ethnic Afar area 
encompasses adjacent Djibouti and Ethiopia, and some irredentists 
among the Afar have rejected Eritrean independence as merely a 
further partitioning of their territory among independent states. 
The Afar Revolutionary Democratic Unity Front (ARDUF), an expatriate 
umbrella group of three political organizations, calls for Asmara's 
recognition of the Afar right to self-determination. Some factions 
of what was formerly a united ELF  the ELF-Popular Liberation Front, 
the ELF-National Council and the ELF-United Organization  have 
returned to Eritrea to participate in the task of reconstruction. On 
the other hand, the ELF-Revolutionary Council, though it called for 
Eritreans to vote for independence in the referendum, has stated 
from exile that institutions such as the national legislature 
created by the EPLF's provisional government (PGE) are illegitimate.
        In accord with its early embrace of a multiparty system, the EPLF's 
pre-victory platform included guarantees for political parties and 
associations to organize after independence. Upon coming to power, 
however, the EPLF postponed multipartyism until after the 
referendum. The post-referendum decree postponing multipartyism also 
established a National Assembly composed of members of the EPLF 
central committee and sixty others either directly nominated by the 
EPLF or rising from the earlier-created village, municipal, 
district, and provincial councils. Though members of the lower 
councils were popularly elected, candidates were routinely vetted by 
the Front.
        The PGE has repeatedly stated in the year since independence that 
its intention is to build up the institutions that would make a 
multiparty-political system successful in Eritrea. Yet, the EPLF 
appears reticent to allow civil society a meaningful role. Its 
revolutionary history was one stressing mass participation under the 
EPLF leadership, with vanguard organizations in territory it 
controlled explicitly organized to lead Eritreans toward the type of 
radical social vision that it held. With the long-awaited day of 
independence having passed, the regime calls for renewed national 
consensus on the road forward. At the same time, it notes publicly 
that allowing freedoms and full political participation, before 
institutions that can support their responsible exercise are 
developed, will bring chaos. The People's Front for Justice and 
Democracy (PFJD), successor to the EPLF, also stresses the problems 
of the economy and how to confront the external threat from the 
Sudan (see Young, 1996, for an examination of these issues and the 
relationship between the EPRDF in Ethiopia and PFJD in Eritrea).
        The state's commitment to democracy is mixed (Iyob, 1997). 
Paralleling its policy during the insurgency itself, a 
philosophically egalitarian regime has made certain that women play 
an integral part in reconstruction. They participated in the 
physical work of rebuilding alongside men, and have played a 
significant role in administration. At the top, the Minister of 
Justice is a Muslim woman, while women make up an estimated 
one-quarter of the National Assembly. There is concern, however, 
that many women at the grassroots will be forced back into 
traditional roles now that independence has been won, as happened in 
Algeria, so that they will not be able to compete with men in an 
extremely tight labor market. Despite the regime's positive approach 
to women's rights, its record on other civil liberties is 
unsettling. Its pre-referendum platform guaranteed freedom of the 
press, speech, association, and peaceful assembly, yet several 
serious deviations from these commitments occurred as the balloting 
neared. Publication of independent points of view in Eritrea 
continued to be largely confined to church-based print media. 
Ethiopian journalists known to oppose Eritrean independence were 
prevented from freely visiting Eritrea in the period leading up to 
the referendum, and the activities of the sole human rights group in 
Eritrea were temporarily suspended by the regime shortly before the 
balloting. The government has provided limited political space for 
local nongovernmental organizations to form and operate.
        There also is concern with new economic dependency projects. The 
government continues to seek foreign and international support, 
especially financial aid. In 1997, it announced that the Assab oil 
refinery would be moved to Massawa, and contracted the project with 
Agip, the Italian oil company. And, in a related move, the 
government planned on renovating the ports, seeking $30 million from 
the International Development Association of the World Bank. The 
government in Addis Ababa closely monitors this development since it 
recently has imported approximately 70 percent of its product. The 
concern with dependency, then, is both its potential impact on 
political independence for the new country, and potential issues 
surrounding future economic development and payments on debts.
I!.  Somalia and Somaliland
        In January 1991, after a concentrated two-month assault on 
Mogadishu by United Somali Congress (USC) insurgents, Somalia's 
President Siad Barre and the remnants of his regime were forced to 
seek refuge in their Marehan traditional kinship group area in the 
southwestern part of the country. With the end of the 
twenty-year-old dictatorship, it was widely hoped that peace would 
come to Somalia after years of intensifying civil war. During the 
relatively peaceful period before armed conflict again erupted in 
southern Somalia, a portion of the country decided to separate. In 
May 1991 the Somali National Movement (SNM), an armed rebel group 
composed largely of the Isaaq kinship group-family that had taken 
over administration of northwestern Somalia after the defeat of Siad 
Barre, unilaterally declared the independence of a breakaway 
Somaliland with Hargeisa as its capital. Press attention has focused 
on famine and violence in the remainder of once-unified Somalia, the 
portion facing the Indian Ocean to the south and east. Meanwhile, 
conditions in the now-largely pacific Somaliland, which faces the 
Gulf of Aden and the Arabian Peninsula, have attracted little notice.
        The name Somaliland' comes from that period dating from the end 
of the nineteenth century until Somalian independence in 1960, when 
this region of the Horn of Africa inhabited by Somalis was first a 
British protectorate and then a colony. Southern Somalia had been 
colonized by Italy, French Somaliland (now Djibouti) was on the 
west, and the vast inland Ogaden region to the west, also inhabited 
by ethnic Somalis, had been conquered by the Ethiopian Empire at 
roughly the same time that the Europeans were carving up the rest of 
the Horn. In 1960, the Italian and British colonies were united into 
one independent country, with its capital of Mogadishu in the south, 
but many Somalis long cherished the hope of someday uniting the five 
fragments of their traditional homeland (including northeastern 
Kenya) into a Greater Somalia'.
        General Siad Barre, a southern Somali from the Marehan subgroup 
of the Darod, had come to power in 1969, heading a military junta 
that overthrew a largely ineffectual civilian regime. In an 
atmosphere of hope and renewal, the new regime rallied Somalis to 
participate in volunteer reconstruction and revegetation projects. 
Mass organizations were launched to mobilize young people, women, 
and other social sectors in support of the new nationalism and 
government. Later, literacy campaigns taught a new Latin script to a 
people for whom Somali had been strictly an oral medium, and the 
regime began to institute the education of young women. A family law 
promulgated in the 1970s recognized women as fully legal persons.
        The other side of these developmental measures was the suppression 
of civil society. Free association and expression deemed to 
exacerbate kinship group divisions were banned. Work strikes, viewed 
by the state as a form of economic sabotage, were legally punishable 
by death. The judiciary was an arm of executive policy, and as such 
meted out long prison sentences even to nonviolent antigovernment 
demonstrators. The media was state-run, and criticism of the regime 
not tolerated. Agents of the National Security Service tortured 
political detainees who often were held indefinitely without charge 
or trial. The paramilitary Victory Pioneers', created to protect the 
gains of the Revolution, were repeatedly implicated in the rape of 
women from kinship groups such as the Isaaq that resisted the 
regime. And ten Somalian clerics were executed for publicly 
criticizing the Siad Barre government's policies favoring the rights 
of women to inheritance.
        The full cost to Somalis of the squelching of civil society was 
only appreciated as time passed. A single revolutionary ruling party 
had been created in 1976 and a constitution went into effect three 
years later to give a civilian and de jure veneer to what was a 
military-dominated regime that only served to formalize the 
president's power. By the beginning of the eighties, the regime had 
lost any credit that it might have amassed as a government committed 
to broad national interests when Siad Barre began openly showing 
favoritism to a narrow range of kinship groups to which he was 
linked by blood or marriage. Among the favorites were members of his 
own Marehan kinship group. Such favoritism created unprecedented 
conflict, exacerbated by his war with Ethiopia in the 1970s and the 
alignment of the U.S. with Somalia and the former U.S.S.R. with 
Ethiopia.
        The first kinship group to become openly rebellious was the Isaaq. 
The Somali National Movement (SNM), largely an Isaaq organization 
founded in London in 1981, did not mount a full-scale offensive from 
its base of operations in nearby Ethiopia until 1988. Surprisingly, 
within only a few months it was able to seize control of the major 
towns in the Isaaq heartland before being forced out into the 
countryside in a counteroffensive by Somalian troops. The action by 
the army was not only directed against SNM combatants, but also 
against civilians. Employing tactics practiced against noncombatant 
populations throughout the Horn, the army and security forces 
destroyed water wells, burned off critical grazing areas, detained 
and tortured men, and gang-raped women. Military police rounded up 
people at random and publicly executed them both in reprisal for 
guerrilla attacks and to intimidate nascent rebel recruits and 
sympathizers. A campaign of destruction sent bombers and artillery 
batteries against civilian targets, devastating Hargeisa and other 
major cities in the region. As many as half a million northern 
Somalis fled, becoming refugees in neighboring Ethiopia and 
Djibouti. Many of them have not returned to a country now 
independent but still largely unrecovered.
        After the SNM finally took charge of Somaliland in 1991, there 
was initial uncertainty as to whether the territory should 
ultimately dissolve its union with Somalia; opinion within the 
movement, as well as the population, was split. But sentiment for 
independence immediately increased in the North after the quick 
accession of Ali Mahdi, a member of the Hawiye kinship group of 
central Somalia, as interim successor to the overthrown Siad Barre. 
The SNM felt it had not been consulted in the choice of president, 
foresaw the creation of another regime where people from the North 
would be marginalized, and felt mounting popular pressure to cut 
ties after years of genocidal policies emanating from far-off 
Mogadishu. With independence, Abdurahman Ahmed Ali Tur', chairman of 
the SNM, was named the first president of Somaliland by an 
all-national Guurti  a council of elders who comprise an intergroup 
organization encompassing a variety of kinship groups. By separating 
from the South, however, Somaliland had not ensured that it would 
avoid being drawn into the type of inter-kinship group conflict that 
was soon to rage in what remained of Somalia. Armed conflict 
sporadically erupted for the first year and a half after the SNM 
came to power. Almost immediately after victory over the Siad Barre 
regime was achieved at the beginning of 1991, there was fighting in 
and around the town of Borarna, in the middle of traditionally 
Gadabursi territory to the west of Hargeisa. Elements of the 
Isaaq-dominated SNM, said to resent what was alleged to have been 
collaboration by the leadership of the Gadabursi with the Siad Barre 
regime, reportedly struck out in retribution at the smaller kinship 
group after the fall of that regime. The next month, an all-kinship 
group conference was held in the port of Berbera in an attempt to 
avoid such conflicts in the future. A year later fighting moved to 
Berbera and to Burao. Isaaq militiamen from different sub-kinship 
groups sporadically battled each other during much of 1992 as their 
factions jockeyed for local control. When not directly involved in 
the maneuvering for advantage itself, the national government was 
unable to impose order. The executive seemed incapable of persuading 
Somali kinship groups to delegate it authority, and Hargeisa has 
been in no condition to impose either order or its own will by force.
        Another conference was convened to promote peace between the 
rivals, where a group of elders was selected to resolve future 
disputes before they erupted into violence. At the start of 1993, 
representatives from both the Isaaq and minority kinship groups, and 
members of the government met in Borama at a gathering of the 
national Guurti. In proceedings that continued for some three 
months, the Guurti confirmed that it would formally transform itself 
into an upper legislative body in 1996 when the transitional regime 
was scheduled to expire. It also drafted a transitional national 
charter, and appointed an interim parliament and supreme court. In 
seizing the initiative by taking such bold and sweeping actions, the 
Guurti has shown itself to be a match for the chief-of-state and the 
ruling party's central committee, a balance of power rare in the 
Horn of Africa. The fact that the SNM leadership would acquiesce to 
Guurti direction is in accord with the party's long-time reputation 
for being one of the most democratic movements in the Horn of 
Africa. Its party congresses, rather than being programmed 
celebrations of solidarity, have frequently been contentious, as 
various individuals vied for the position of chairperson. This 
acceptance of pluralism and dissent has influenced the 
still-developing polity: the parliamentary vote in October 1993 to 
approve a kinship group-diverse' government and its program of 
action for the projected two-year transitional period was far from 
unanimous. Despite the relatively democratic, tolerant, and 
representative nature of the transitional government, the United 
Nations and the Organization of African Unity continue to refuse to 
recognize it as a sovereign state  a seal of approval that would 
facilitate access to economic development assistance.
        Despite the transitional government's unusual and expanding 
penchant for inclusive politics, Somaliland's minority kinship 
groups remain largely unconvinced that they will have a significant 
voice in governing the new country. Sensing that they needed 
political organizations to champion their own interests, members of 
the Gadabursi, Dolbahante, and Issa kinship groups proceeded to form 
them after Somaliland's unilateral declaration of independence. The 
Somali Democratic Association, which largely represents the 
interests of the Gadabursi, has put itself on record as opposing the 
split-up of Somalia, and the United Somali Party representing the 
Dolbahante and Warsangali leans in the same direction. The attitude 
of non-Isaaq kinship group leaders unaffiliated with any party 
continues to be ambiguous. Though the transitional government 
announced that political parties other than the SNM would not be 
allowed to operate until regulations governing their operation had 
been instituted, it is unlikely that it will hazard the breakout of 
interclass violence of the kind witnessed in Somalia by challenging 
the existence of these organizations. The government's response, for 
example, to the 1997 meeting of the National Salvation Council (NSC) 
was anomalous. Moreover, organizations such as the Somali Aid 
Co-ordinating Body (SACB) recently have reached the world media with 
their protests.
        Although a supreme court has been named, a comprehensive national 
judicial and legal system is not yet in place. Instead, local 
kinship group elders usually meet throughout the country to decide 
disputes and mete out punishments with resort to a traditional mix 
of Somali customary law and Islamic Shari'a. Islamists have made 
their pitch to the population that fundamentalism provides the only 
hope for preventing in the North the chaos that reigns in the South 
(cf. P.M. 1995, p. 12). In response to this issue, as well as to the 
lack of economic resources everywhere in the country, non-Moslem 
Somalis of various kinship groups have come together to represent a 
multitude of interests within the country that cut across kinship 
group affiliations.
        Unlike the other countries examined here, there are significant 
checks on the power of the executive in Somaliland. The power of the 
kinship groups, demonstrated in their reluctance to turn control of 
the national airport in Hargeisa and seaport in Berbera over to the 
national government, indicates potential resistance to the state. 
Yet, international news agencies continue to report that Mogadishu 
only has order under the view of the state while lawlessness 
continues on the streets. The national Guurti, nonetheless, is a 
powerful check on the power of the executive, and here we can see 
the hand of civil society creating representative institutions. The 
Guurti collectively stands for interests that transcend the narrow 
preferences of any one group. Those who serve are both traditional 
agents and leaders of their people, though their selection is almost 
invariably on a basis that Westerners would not understand. Another 
resurgence of civil society, of course, is seen in the creation of 
directly representative civic organizations. Taken together, these 
burgeoning strands of civil society in Somaliland provide a possible 
example for the other countries in the Horn.

Conclusion
        Authoritarian statism has been the rule rather than the exception 
during the past three decades in the Horn of Africa. Whether by coup 
d'tat, insurgency, or a more gradual assumption of absolute power by 
those already in authority, small coteries often have managed to 
hijack the state, usually for their own benefit (Tekle, 1996). In 
order to preempt all challenges to their prerogatives, these statist 
coteries often have attempted to constrain the development of civil 
society by refusing to recognize the rights of free association, 
speech, and assembly. This pattern of authoritarianism and 
repression has been fostered either directly or indirectly by the 
international economic community and its principal agents, the 
International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, and even at 
times by the well-meaning practices of Western aid and relief 
agencies (Toggia, 1998). Indeed, the Western response to internal 
conflict (sometimes coded as lawlessness') in the states of the Horn 
often has been to promote and encourage the development of law and 
order' institutions such as a strong central military apparatus, 
larger and more secure prisons, technology to enable surveillance 
and monitoring, as well as practices such as swift and certain' 
sentencing, more aggressive policing, curfews, and austerity 
measures (Toggia and Lauderdale, 1998). These law and order' 
antidotes to African lawlessness' have the effect of strengthening 
the officially recognized state' regime in each country at the 
expense of dissenting political views, minority groups, and the 
spheres of civil society. In essence, the externally imposed Western 
model often has promoted authoritarian statism, despite its putative 
commitment to democracy, equality, and individual rights.
        In analyzing the pattern of conflict and war in the Sudan, Peter 
Woodward observes that the principal difficulty arises when what is 
seen as the problem is not simply the degree of power held 
centrally  but the character of the state as well' (1994b, p. 87). 
Woodward notes that the primary cause of conflict in the region may 
be attributable less to differences and divisions among various 
groups, but instead to the shared experience [of] being incorporated 
into the same state' (1994a, p. 78). From this view, the state is 
seen as an alien and imposed framework' characterized by a 
discriminatory domination' that has become a source of deep rivalry 
between competing segments of the indigenous population' (1994a, p. 
78). Specifically, Woodward asserts that certain religious and 
ethnic conflicts are in part at least a product of the state; and in 
large measure a consequence of the state-building that has taken 
place since imperialism carved out the state boundaries of most of 
modern Africa' (1994a, p. 78) (see also Markakis, 1998, delineating 
the connections among state power, resource depletion, and conflict 
in the Horn). As an antidote to the state, Woodward counterposes the 
concept of federalism' in its strong sense as a federation of 
largely autonomous local units and not in the watered-down Western 
sense of multipartyism (see Henze, 1994, p. 126, noting that In its 
pristine pastoral democratic form, Somalia can perhaps be regarded 
as a preliminary form of federation'; see Mbah and Igariwey, 1997, 
discussing federation among certain traditional African societies). 
Such ideas are reminiscent of the kind of federalism' adopted by the 
Iroquois Confederation in the precolonial U.S.  a system which 
inspired early constitutional framers of the U.S. governmental model 
such as Jefferson and Franklin (Deloria and Lytle, 1983; Mander, 
1992).
        In the context of conflict in the Horn, civil society may prove 
important in fostering the kind of dialogue that could make 
federalism in its strong sense a viable alternative to the 
state-military nexus that has dominated the region since colonialism 
(but see Negash, 1997, for a critique of one form of federation). As 
we have seen, a vigorous civil society can be crucial, and it is all 
the more important when there are limited checks and balances on the 
unconstrained exercise of executive and/or military power.
        Certain facades of civil society, however, may themselves create 
a dangerous environment in which civil society itself ultimately 
perishes. This is particularly true in countries tentatively 
exploring the boundaries of a new order more respectful of civil 
liberties, as is the case in Ethiopia today. If opposition movements 
and independent institutions simply mirror or exaggerate the 
authoritarian and factionalist political culture found in the 
country's successive governments, they run the risk of providing 
just the rationalization needed by those currently in power to 
continue resorting to repressive measures. If there is a transitory 
balance of power between the capital and other centers of power 
within the country that stays the hand of authoritarian statism, a 
sudden shift of allegiances and power can dissolve the checks on the 
exercise of absolute power by creating new power brokers that are as 
arbitrary, corrupt, and violent as the old ones. The leader of a 
group claiming oppression and protesting one president's dictatorial 
rule today may become tomorrow's despotic ruler. More generally, it 
appears that opposition movements intent on ascending to power 
themselves often are transformed via the change of power into the 
very authoritarian organization that they previously opposed (cf. 
Werlhof, 1997). Authoritarian statism, intolerance, and disrespect 
may be qualities endemic to power itself, particularly power of the 
military, political, and economic varieties  in short, the power 
subsumed by the state (cf. Amster, 1998).
        Yet attempts at such control are not always predictable. 
Individuals and organizations anointed by the state merely to give 
the appearance of independence can actually begin to act 
independently. Afar cabinet ministers in the Hassan Gouled regime 
have acted to publicize abuses by the Djiboutian army against ethnic 
Afars in the north of the country. In Sudan, a trade union 
federation created by the regime to replace an independent labor 
movement decimated by arrests and detentions has begun to make wage 
demands on behalf of its membership. Sometimes dependent entities of 
the state can take on a life of their own, promoting the interests 
of those that they were conceived only to feign representing.
        Civil society's potential to hold the state accountable depends, 
among other things, on how sensitive a state is to outside pressure 
and how much of an audience civil institutions have with foreign 
governments, particularly aid/relief donors. While mass 
manifestations of civil society have proven weak in Djibouti since 
independence, a regime dependent on extensive Western aid has 
hesitated on the brink of decisively repressing independent and 
nonviolent citizen initiatives. The case is equally true in 
Ethiopia, where the government is concerned with its international 
image. Concern with foreign perceptions, however, can cause regimes 
to choose the opposite path if they wish to emphasize stability. For 
awhile Djibouti habitually stifled dissent in the hope that foreign 
investors and donors would not be scared off by signs of public 
disaffection. Over the past few years, Ethiopia also has experienced 
episodes of suppression as the government attempted to present an 
image of social tranquility. The Sudanese regime, on the other hand, 
has only sporadically displayed concern about how the West views it. 
It has either tried to block foreign visitors from meeting with 
members of the underground human rights community or made cynical 
gestures of liberality toward the international community such as 
commemorating special NIF anniversaries with limited prisoner 
releases and allowing occasional entry visas to foreign human rights 
activists.
        The West cannot, however, delude itself into thinking that it is 
capable of taking the lead in building, or rebuilding, a civic 
society in any of the countries of the Horn. The situation in 
Somalia bears witness to the disastrous effects of such a strategy. 
And, while international media now point to the $30 billion spent on 
the humanitarian' mission of the early 1990s and the atrocities 
committed against Somali civilians by U.S., Canadian, Belgian and 
Italian military contingents during the mission, these disasters are 
only a small part of the devastating losses. Ironically, the 
Organization of African Unity (OAU) is working with the U.S. on an 
initiative for an African peacekeeping' force. U.S. soldiers, 
including members of the Green Beret unit, were preparing as early 
as 1997 to start a training program in seven African nations, 
including Ethiopia.
        What the future holds for the Horn of Africa is a subject of great 
speculation, one that is of crucial importance both in the region 
itself and as a foreshadowing of analogous global-local processes in 
other regions around the world. The record from the countries in the 
Horn is still one of early mortality, poverty, and illiteracy. The 
short-term solutions most often advocated are greater state' 
influence in the region, more law and order' practices designed on 
the Western model, and an increased military presence meant to quash 
insurgency and rebellion  all at the expense of the development of 
civil society, the search for consensus, and respect for diversity. 
We suggest that such externally encouraged Western practices have 
the primary effect of exacerbating strife and conflict in the region 
despite their cosmetic overtures to the rule of law, order, and 
security. If the countries of the Horn are to find lasting solutions 
to the legacy of colonialism, it might be advisable to avoid the 
temptations of modern-day colonialism' appearing in the form of 
international capital and its burgeoning global hegemony, and 
instead to seek internal solutions as much as possible. Civil 
society organizations, kinship structures, social safety nets such 
as hospice and mutual aid, independent resolution of disputes, and 
sharing of common-pool resources might serve to impel the countries 
of the Horn in a new direction  one that is greatly informed by the 
time-tested wisdom of the region's precolonial past. Perhaps then, 
the Horn of Africa can become a model for drawing positive results 
out of the complex historical dialectic of external order' and 
internal conflict.

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Notes
On Thu, 6 Apr 2000, Gunder Frank 
wrote:

> cant use it anyway
> g/On Thu, 6 Apr 2000 PAT.LAUDERDALE@asu.edu wrote:
> 
> > Date: Thu, 06 Apr 2000 14:11:07 -0900 (PDT)
> > From: PAT.LAUDERDALE@asu.edu
> > To: Andreas Gunder Frank <agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca>
> > Subject: Re: Fwd: FW: Great quotes (fwd)
> > 
> > Hope my e-mail attachment on the Horn of Africa didn't blow up your
> > system.  I should have sent you only a small part but simply screwed
> > up. 
> > 
> > Yours, in technique not technology,
> > pl
> > 
> > 
> 
> 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>                      ANDRE GUNDER FRANK
>           Visiting Professor  of  International Relations       
> University of Miami           &         Florida International University  
> 
> 380 Giralda Ave. Apt 704                Tel: 1-305-648 1906
> Miami - Coral Gables FL                 Fax: 1-305-648 0149
> USA  33134                              e-mail:agfrank@chass.utoronto.ca 
> 
> Personal/Professional Home Page> http://csf.colorado.edu/archive/agfrank/
> 
> My NATO/Kosovo Page> http://csf.colorado.edu/archive/agfrank/nato_kosovo/ 
>      
> 
> My professional/personal conclusion is the same as Pogo's - 
>             We have met the enemy, and it is US 
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> 
>