Somalis are generally nationalistic, much like any other people. They love their lands, seas, and spaces. But in every country there is always the bad apple, which may disgrace a perfectly functioning system or become traitors to their people, serving the enemies of their own people. Usually it must be related to some ultra ego or money matters and at other times a traitor may have a weakness being exploited by an enemy nation. On occasions it may be related to an aggrieved party, prepared to take revenge on its own people and family for some perceived aggression against it.
The Somali people lived in the Horn of Africa or the Somali Peninsula before history was even written. Rock art in Las Geel north of Hargeisa date back to some six (6) thousand years ago. Contrary to claims of some Somali clans that they are of Arab origin, present day DNA analysis notes that Somalis have nothing to do with Arabs or Arabia except sharing with them, the religion of Islam and trading with them. Their languages, customs and culture, other than belonging to the same Islamic faith, are quite different. But they have always maintained close relationships, which continues to this day. Somalia is, indeed, in the Arab League.
They have never allowed other people to crowd them in the region and kept it for themselves. It is why it is called the Somali Peninsula. There is no way they would let Ethiopia to take a part of the Somali sea or even use it for any other reason other than commercial purposes. That Somalis can now even discuss allowing it to use the Somali waters for commercial purposes should have pleased Ethiopia, as Somalis of the past would never have thought of that possibility ever.
The changes that have taken place over the years and the travel of Somalis to many parts of the world have exposed them to other cultures and have made them realize that they can live in peace with their neighbors and trade with them and exchange with them services like education, health care and others.
No wonder many non-Somali Ethiopians have travelled and resided in Somalia completely at ease with Somali populations. The same has happed in Ethiopia, where Somalis from the Federal Republic have also travelled and resided in Ethiopia for long periods. This is a clear indication that the populations are accepting each other and are at ease with each other.
The weakened governance infrastructure of Somalia over the past four decades of civil war has misled the current Ethiopia Administration to believe that Somali nationalism has died or is diminished. Somalis have not spoken or even mentioned anywhere over decades of the lost territories to Ethiopia and Kenya. They were pleased to have Djibouti accession to its independence despite the fact it did not join the Somali fold
There are Somali territories that are in Ethiopia, (partially represented by the Somali State of Ethiopia with its capital at Jigjiga) and Kenya (the north Frontier District with its capital at Garissa) and another part is currently standing alone as a separate country, namely the Republic of Djibouti.
Somalis love their country as do others for their countries and do not like being arm twisted. Even the Europeans who were much stronger than Ethiopia against a Somali barely equipped with weapons know the Somali story. Somalis stood in their way for years to allow these foreigners to feel comfortable in staying in a Somali space.
In the last century and half alone, Somalis have been waging wars to defend the Peninsula from foreigners on multiple occasions. These included the Menelik II invasions on Somali territories, the Dervish war in northern Somalia which lasted for some 22 years and the Banadir or Bimal revolt and resistance war which lasted for some 36 years, the several wars between Somalia and Ethiopia in the sixties and seventies of the last century, and the latest Ethiopia invasion of Somalia in 2006, which had a diplomatic cover as IGADSOM, an IGAD organized peacemaking mission, which failed miserably. Ethiopia should not forget the Somali resolve on this matter. It dates back to thousands of years.
On many of these occasions, the Somali resistance was not through an organized governing system but through popular uprisings of the people, which is more deadly than when fighting against an organized military apparatus. Ethiopia should know better than any other nation that Somalis would not allow it to take over their seas and territories. The 2006 Ethiopian invasion should be a good reminder.
This may lead Ethiopia to be fighting not to have access to a sea but to keeping the Somali territories in Ethiopia, which stretch all the way to near Addis Ababa. Eventually, Ethiopia will give up and it would be wiser if it did not start a doomed and ill-fated process, in the first place. Ethiopia will pay dearly not in a war with Somalia but also in the international arena, which will see and read it as an aggressor nation. And being African country, they will be punished severely, knowing the mistakes in the political arena, they have committed against its own people in the country, so far.
Northern Somalis know that Ethiopia is playing a game and that they have no interest in its independence from the rest of Somalia. They know that Ethiopia is reluctant to recognize the province as an independent country for the same could happen to it and only using them as a tactical ploy in its negotiations with Somalia.
Ethiopia’s Tigray is already fighting the Ethiopian Government to walk away from a center that has killed or wounded million of its people. The Amhara people of the Amhara state are equally annoyed at the Ethiopian administration which is killing and dispersing many of it citizens. No wonder FANO, an Amhara resistance movement is currently fighting the Ethiopian Administration over the past two years. Other regions are either at war with each other or fighting the Ethiopian federal government, which does not pose well for the Ethiopian Administration.
Ethiopia’s ambiguity with respect to dealing with Somalia’s northern province is a clear indication of its duplicity and untrustworthiness. It hurts the possibility of getting the two countries of Ethiopia and Somalia ever getting closer together in the foreseeable future. The irony is that Ethiopia is not acting on its own but on the instructions and advice of some hidden forces acting behind curtains, who have interest in the region.
Ethiopia went wrong in seeking access to a Somali sea in an illegal and improper manner, outside internationally agreed conventions in this respect. It went wrong again discounting the resolve of Somalis to protect their spaces. It also went wrong when it started to slave for others, who do not want to show themselves, and have no interest in either the development of Ethiopia or the region but to exploit it for their own interests.
Ethiopia went wrong again in not rationalizing how to deploy its large human resources. It currently used them to threaten the neighboring countries, smaller but significantly better geostrategically placed. It failed to see that it can use them to attract foreign direct investments, which would have enabled it to have better and hence cheaper commercial access to the seas of the world through the neighboring countries. They already have Djibouti as a major entry and exit port of its foreign trade business. They could have added other ports which would have reduced drastically the cost of access to seas through the different ports of the region.
Ethiopia went wrong in assuming a hegemonic but unwarranted attitude towards the neighbors, who could have willingly worked with it in the development of the region socially, economically, and an improved political landscape.
The region would be better if the countries of the region, were working together and facing off others together instead of fighting each other. A divided region never rises, and the Ethiopia Administration appears to have missed this important element for a regional platform, which would have allowed it, not only to have commercial access to a wide sea, but also to seed peace in a region which has not seen stability for over a century now.
Ethiopia’s economic woes, its internal and external conflicts, which are worsening by the day, should have taught it to pause and evaluate what its best interests are. Ethiopia knows that humanitarian and multilateral financial organizations have conditioned their assistance to Ethiopia to halt the internal conflicts of the country and make peace with neighboring countries and most of all Somalia, where relations with the country has ebbed down drastically over the past year. Ethiopia is further required to create political stability in its own country, which has seen dangerously difficult contortions of its governing systems since 2020.
No wonder it is seeking to make peace with Somalia, which it has aggressed, through the assistance of Somalia’s friendly countries like Türkiye and Kenya and others. How should a country which is landlocked be building warships and even commercial ships when it has no sea? Where would they house them? Perhaps it should have them docked in the many ports of the United Arab Emirates, a country which seems to be helping it, in this mad quest for an access to a sea.
Somali waters should not be absolutely allowed to receive or service Ethiopian ships until and unless Ethiopia first cancels the MoU it signed with one of the provinces of the Somalia and then apologises to the country and people. The same policy should be applied to the United Arab Emirates which is currently endangering the Somali state.
Somalia had no ill will for Ethiopia or for any other country, over the past four decades and even let its territories in Ethiopia remain as part of Ethiopia to ease relations between the two countries. Although it is on the onus of the Federal Government of Somalia, it would be unwise to even talk to Ethiopia and let the friendly countries know that Somalia would not participate in future discussions, unless Ethiopia first rescinds the MoU and apologies sincerely and publicly to Somalia.
Discussions, thereafter, would be on the basis of Ethiopia working first to free the Somali territories of Ethiopia. They came with Europeans, the last of which left the Somali territories in 1977, which became Djibouti. Ethiopia is still in control of the Somali lands it received as colonies during the partition of Africa in 1884 and which was signed into treaties in 1897 with Great Britain.
This was hidden from the Somalis until the late forties after the Second World War, when Great Britain gave away those lands in violation of the treaties it signed with Somalis in 1884, fifteen (15) years earlier than its treaties with the King of Abyssinia, Menelik II, at the time.
The Italians never ratified the border between its possession of Somalia at the time and Abyssinia and a large part of that border remains provisional. It is represented by dots on maps to this date. It is, perhaps, time the Somali government raised issues in this regard.
It is up to the Somali Federal Government to address these issues now or in the future. It was not the first time Somalis were wronged. In 1963, there was a referendum in the North Frontier District of Kenya which overwhelmingly ended in the population of the region voting to join their brothers in Somalia (some 87%). They were denied their rights and wishes and were joined to the British Kenya colony of the time, which soon after, became independent. It is still part of Kenya.
It is reported that the French have taken a contract to build small naval ships for Ethiopia, a landlocked country without a sea. What is wrong with the French? Or they perhaps do not care if two Black African peoples kill each other while they make a few piastres or centimes in the process.
Ethiopia went wrong on this issue and should reverse itself. It would the better for it and the region which should be spared from the elephants of the world fighting over it. Both Ethiopia and Somalia will become the grass that is trashed and trampled upon, when the bulls fight.
