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[PANEL] 0502 BORDERS AND FRONTIERS IN ETHIOPIA AND THE HORN OF AFRICA AFTER 1941
Organizers:
Antonio Maria MORONE, University of Pavia, Italy
TEMESGEN Gebeyehu, University of Bahr Dahr, Ethiopia
Paper presenters:
ALEMAYEHU Erkihun; TEMESGEN Baye; Tanja R. MÜLLER; KEFYALEW Tessema Semu; TEWODROS Hailemariam;
Caitlin COLLIS; NETSEREAB Ghebremichael Andom; BIYAN Ghebreyesus Okubaghergis;
Antonio M. MORONE; GIRMAY Halefom Adhana; Pablo Arconada LEDESMA
In 1986, Southern Marches' seminal work challenged the Great Tradition theory and turned the centre-periphery paradigm into the dominant theme of Ethiopian historiography. Since then, scholars have put under extensive scrutiny the remapping of the Ethiopian state at its margins, integrating the statist perspective with a new approach that placed the periphery at the centre of the analysis and explored the agency of local actors at the frontier in negotiating and performing statehood. In recent years, the availability of innovative sources has created additional opportunities to understand the functioning and ruling strategies of the multiple power poles that acted in the name of the Ethiopian "centre" during the imperial (1941-1974), socialist (1974-1990) and contemporary (1990-2002) period, and how did these actors struggle to extend state sovereignty or resist alternative civilizing projects at the margins. Not incidentally, the frontier has become a powerful heuristic framework to understand the restructuring of the Ethiopian state after 1941.
We would like to collect paper proposals based on innovative primary sources and original case studies that analyse the advancement of the Ethiopian state on the internal frontier, here considered as a territorial space that fall within the formal sphere of sovereignty of the state but where sovereign prerogatives are challenged by non-state actors that struggle to become centres in their own right. We also would like to explore the ruling and diplomatic strategies adopted by Ethiopian rulers and competing regional polities to regulate space, territorialize power and contain insurgent movements that threatened the territorial integrity of their country. This panel is an attempt to integrate the social history of the borderlands with a new institutional history that brings the state back into the equation. We would like to understand whether attempts to make international borders legible and enforceable following decolonization of the Horn of Africa produced new frontier configurations or simply refashioned old centre-periphery paradigms, but we also want to deconstruct the concepts of "centre" and "periphery" and investigate the hidden power struggles that were fought between and within these two apparently defined camps.
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BOUNDARY AND BORDERLAND ISSUES BETWEEN ETHIOPIA AND SUDAN, 1950S-1974 [Abstract ID: 0502-01]
The objective of this paper is to critically examine the boundary issues and border-related problems between Ethiopia and Sudan from the 1950s to 1974. As neighbouring countries, Ethiopia and Sudan share several common elements. Despite this, the relationship between the two countries is highly complicated because the borders between them are not demarcated, a fact that has triggered claims and counterclaims over the borderlands since the 1950s. Because of the sensitivity of the boundary issue and the claims on borderland resources, the two countries engaged in reciprocal spying activities to bolster their bargaining positions. This study explores the boundary and border-related problems as well as the two countries’ diplomatic efforts to demarcate the boundary line and handle frontier security threats from 1950s-1974. The boundary issues became a matter of serious dispute between the two countries in the 1950s. In the first place, the imperial government established mechanized farms in the Sätit-Humära borderlands. At the same time, rich landowners became actively engaged in cultivating sesame, cotton and other crops in Sätite-Humära, and sought to increase their land holdings. For its part, Sudan achieved its independence in January 1956 and the newly independent country therefore developed strong interest in the fertile and resource-rich borderlands it shared with Ethiopia. Furthermore, the late 1950s in both Sudan and Ethiopia saw the emergence of separatist movements, respectively led by South Sudanese and Eritrean insurgents, which further complicated the boundary issues and the issue of frontier security. The source material for this study comes largely from archival sources. Secret documents produced at the time of the events were consulted, along with journal articles, academic research, and other sources. The sources are objectively evaluated and carefully interpreted.
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CENTER-PERIPHERY RELATIONS, LOCAL GOVERNANCE AND CONFLICTS IN ETHIOPIA: THE EXPERIENCE OF METEKEL PROVINCE [Abstract ID: 0502-04]
In Ethiopia, the study of center-periphery relations is not an easy task. It has remained complex and dynamic, dictated and shaped by ever changing socio-economic relations, state ideology and structure. A case in point is Metekel region, a lowland area characterized by underdevelopment, hot climate and a traditional way of life. Until post-1991 developments, Metekel was peripheral in relation to the central state. It was an area of confrontation and conflict. Owing to the structural weakness of the center, successive rulers of the area were unable to maintain effective control over it. Focusing on Gumuz, a Nilo-Saharan family, on the one hand, and highlanders and new settlers on the other, this paper examines the main features and dynamics of center-periphery relations, governance and conflicts in the Metekel region. The sources, both primary and secondary, have been carefully examined in accordance with the objectives of the study.
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CONCEPTIONS OF BOUNDARIES AND CITIZENSHIP IN THE STATE-MAKING OF ERITREA [Abstract ID: 0502-05]
Boundaries with or rather against the Ethiopian state were an important features not only in the Eritrean liberation struggle and its ideology, but equally in the politics of post-independence Eritrea. These in turn found a counterpart in the way the Ethiopian state reacted to the Eritrean liberation war as well as to political developments in its aftermath. Those boundaries are not only of geographical importance or a marker of the nation as an imagined community, thus carrying symbolic importance, they are also intimately related to citizen rights, obligations and denial. This paper looks at the different ways in which boundaries between Ethiopia and Eritrea became hard frontiers with concrete implications for conceptions of statehood as well as the lives of citizens. Methodologically, the paper is based on interview and archival research in Eritrea and among some Eritrean refugees between 1996 and 2017. The paper discusses the rhetoric in EPLF documents from the time of the liberation war period and how it uses conceptions of a clear frontier as a rallying cause, and how those conceptions translated into the emergence of a particular type of gatekeeper state post Eritrean independence. It also engages with how these conceptions translate into the emergence of citizens of Ethiopia and Eritrea whose rights-claims as citizens are determined by conceptions of formal citizenship that mirror those boundaries, most visible in the aftermath of the 1998-2000 Eritreo-Ethiopian border war. Finally the paper investigates how conceptions of a fixed boundary have an afterlife in the encounters of refugee populations from Ethiopia and Eritrea, their rights-based claims within international refugee law, but also their social encounters in transit locations where they are often stranded together. Ultimately the paper argues that in spite of the fact that Ethiopia largely escaped formal European colonialism, conceptions of boundaries and frontiers that have their origins in Western political thought and practices have fundamentally shaped the relationship of Ethiopia with Eritrea as a core part of its periphery.
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DYNAMICS IN INTERPLAYS OF DIVERGENT INTERESTS ALONG THE ETHIO-SOMALIA BORDER IN BALE 1960S-1970S [Abstract ID: 0502-02]
This article examines the interactions of polarized interests of the center and its peripheral societies in the lowlands of Bale in the 1960s-1970s. The existing studies focus on efforts of the center to control its defiant borderlands, which limit our understanding of the complex interplays of interests on both sides. To narrow this gap, oral, archival and secondary data have been collected, analyzed and crosschecked in the interpretation. The findings show that this frontier was not only marked by the dichotomy of hostilities between governments on both sides of the border, but also by the polymorphous interests of the local actors. The region was a theater of war of resistance against corrupted agents of the center, in which the Somali- and Oromo-speaking pastoralists and cultivators forged strategic but fragile partnerships. The Somali had the backing of the authority in Mogadishu, who sought to annex the region. Despite giving the priority to getting weapons for their war against the authority in Addis Ababa, the Oromo of the area lacked unity, a clear strategy and a policy towards Somalia’s irredentism that claimed their territories. Thus, though the Somali and Oromo shared logistics and faced the same ‘enemy’, a deep rift lay between their interests due to their differences along linguistic, cultural and political lines, which jeopardized their alliance when they controlled the region twice in the 1960s and 1970s. On the contrary, though the center enjoyed the service of elements of the periphery, with which it succeeded in infiltrating the ranks of the rebel leadership, its agents had subtle contempt and benefited the rebels despite their nominal allegiance to the center. The border dynamics include colonial legacies, the firearm factor, “Giragn syndrome”, power competition, irredentism, contraband, ethnic nationalism, political disillusionment, and the cultural symbolism of pastoralism to the borderlanders. These issues also had implications for the history of the region in the subsequent decades. Thus, further studies on the theme of border dynamics are indispensable to understand such intertwined interests in the volatile frontiers.
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ETHNICITY IN THE SHADOWS OF THE NATION-STATE: A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF ANUAK – NUER ETHNICITY IN THE WESTERN BORDERLANDS [Abstract ID: 0502-17]
Based mainly on regional archives and informants, this paper attempts to situate the historical dynamics of Anuak–Nuer ethnicity within the larger Ethiopian state framework, paying particular attention to the post-1941 period. Historical analysis shows that the juxtaposition of the two groups in relation to economic resources, particularly Nuer bid to share the main rivers of the region, has been the variable which governed the nature, magnitude, and mode of expression of Anuak–Nuer ethnicity. As long as it remained gradual, isolated, and of low intensity, Nuer incursion into Anuak inhabited areas had been either accommodated or resisted by the latter without radically upsetting the natural and social order in the region. This traditional rhythm was upset during the second-half of the twentieth century (since the start of the first Sudanese civil war in 1955) by the massive influx into Gambella of Sudanese Nuer as refugees and dissidents. This led to the genesis of modern Anuak – Nuer ethnicity which is largely a political struggle for power, territory, and wealth with universalist rather than local concerns. This paper argues that Ethiopian state and its modernizing drive has been a major internal context governing interethnic relations in Gambella. The failure of the state to arbitrate the Anuak and the Nuer justly and its inability to provide credible guarantees for Anuak ‘fears of the future’ led to existential concerns and fueled ethnic violence. The paper also holds that the swing from unification socialism to ethnic particularism since 1991 has further upset the delicate inter-ethnic relationship in the region and highly escalated the polarization between the Anuak and the Nuer.
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RURAL ROADS AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF NATIONAL IDENTITY IN SOUTHEASTERN ETHIOPIA, 1974-1991 [Abstract ID: 0502-10]
My paper asks how the development of infrastructure in southeastern Ethiopia, specifically the expansion of the rural road network under the Derg regime in the 1970s and 1980s, transformed notions of citizenship and national identity in a historically marginalized periphery. In the late 1970s, as tensions between Somalia and Ethiopia over the Ogaden flared into a full-scale war, the southeastern province of Bale was identified by the military regime in Addis as a potential base for rebels and Somali sympathizers. Within a few short years, a province that had been marginalized by the state for almost a century became the focus of intense surveillance and a test site for new forms of governmentality. A sudden policy emphasis on rural road construction, in combination with the introduction of the Peasant Associations and the implementation of various forced resettlement and ‘villagization’ schemes in the southeast, constituted a fundamentally new approach to governance – one that aimed to minimize both the actual distance and the sense of distance between center and periphery. My paper starts from the premise that roads often serve as physical manifestations of state power, and considers how the expansion of the rural road network in Bale in this particular historical moment created a host of new obligations for citizens (in terms of their labor and loyalty), and ultimately contributed to new imaginings of the state. I draw on photos, rural roads studies and manuals from the 1970s, and a file of correspondences between Bale officials and the Ministry of Public Works and Communications from the final decades of the Imperial Government in order to trace the evolution in local attitudes towards infrastructure, and to assess how rural roads factored into the broader governance strategy of the Derg. My aim is to examine the kinds of encounters that took place on and around rural roads (and in response to road construction) as a way to ascertain how ordinary Ethiopians in the southeastern periphery experienced and shaped their relationship to the center, and created their own localized centers.
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STATE SEPARATION AND BORDER CONFLICTS IN POST-COLONIAL AFRICA: THE CASE OF ERITREA AND ETHIOPIA [Abstract ID: 0502-18]
Eritrea’s right to self-determination was, from its inception, contentious. It was vehemently rejected both from within and outside the Ethiopian political establishment. Ethiopians posited that Eritrea has historically, socio-culturally and geographically been part of Abyssinia/Ethiopia. External forces such as the OAU and Western countries, by contrast, sided with the dominant Ethiopian narrative on grounds that entertaining the Eritreans’ cause would either set a dangerous pace for “Balkanization” of post-colonial African countries or would simply conflict their geo-political and economic calculus. It is against such odds that Eritrea’s de facto and de jure independence from Ethiopia was achieved in 1991 and 1993 respectively. Yet Eritrea’s complete “civic political divorce” was repeatedly questioned by some vocal Ethiopian nationalists. Long-distance “Abyssinian cybernauts” have particularly belabored to “re-writing” historical accounts that could hardly withstand serious factual scrutiny. Their attempted sabotage to Eritrea’s statehood has also missed the golden opportunity that the two countries could have worked out on their common strategic interests through thorough ironing out of “unhealthy” popular differences in the populations’ perceptions and attitudes, negotiating peacefully on matters that interests both neighbors, building trust as well as putting in place farsighted institutionalized mutual cooperative arrangements. While there are considerable number of literature that account the causes and contributory factors to the disastrous second Ethio-Eritrean war (1998-2000) and its subsequent “frozen conflict”, I argue that the two countries’ belligerent inter-state relations partly arises owing to lack of “emotional liberty” among Ethiopian and Eritrean nationalist groups (politico-military elites and intellectuals) have. Their politico-military elites’ apparent zero-sum diplomatic attitude and the impasse in the Ethio-Eritrean relations since the Algiers Peace Agreement is thus partly explicable to both countries’ succumbing into deeply unhelpful “ghostly historical accounts” (of both distant and recent past). The aim of this paper is to grapple with understanding holistically how Eritreans’ long march to a legal right for self-determination vs. their relations with its former “occupier.” In so doing, the so-called border conflict is analyzed from a broader perspective by considering how the subtly boiling economic and political disputes between the EPRDF and PFDJ had further compounded their differences by competing and divergent ill-motives. While the former were adamant at “punishing” what they perceived as “PFDJ/Shaebia arrogance”, the latter appear to have earnestly deployed war-making and excessive state securitization as a means of delineating socio-cultural boundary-making processes and consolidating national loyalty against their neighbors – most fiercely with their Tigrayean kins across the Mereb Isles.
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THE BORDER REGION OF SEN'AFE AND TSERONA: THE PEOPLE WITHOUT BORDER [Abstract ID: 0502-14]
This paper explores the Eritrea-Ethiopian borderland communities' localized everyday cross-border socio-economic activities and relations from the independence of Eritrea in 1991 to the outbreak of border war in May 1998 through the cases of Tserona and Sen'afe regions. The aim is to understand how the border is experienced, defined and understood in daily lives by in inhabitants of the borderland. The findings reflect that the arbitrarily superimposed international border between Eritrea and Ethiopia has not only failed to affect the pre-existing social, cultural and religious homogeneity among the people, but also everyday cross-border experiences and relations. Despite the change in form and function of the border because of the change in the political landscape between the two countries, the people living in this area maintained their intra-ethnic socio-economic relations and contacts. Subsequently, the border and identity lines remained fluid and invisible. The paper is mediated through individual stories, in-depth interviews, ethnographic observations, media sources and some archival materials gathered from local and national archival centers from Eritrea during summer 2017.
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THE HORN OF AFRICA ON THE EVE OF INDEPENDENCE: ETHIOPIAN INVOLVEMENT IN SOMALI FEDERALIST PLANS [Abstract ID: 0502-06]
During the 1950s, Somali nationalism raised quickly under the leadership of the Somali Youth League (SYL) which was founded in 1943, soon after the Italian defeat in the Horn of Africa. The Somali national movement is usually depicted with a very strong unitary and centralized attitude towards the independent State and its institutions. In actuality the Republic of Somalia, born on July 1st 1960, was an unitary and centralized State where the political life was based on a de facto one-party system, i.e. the monopoly of the Syl. Very less attention in contemporary historiography was addressed to loser plans of the main opposition party, the Hizbia Dustur Mustaqil Somali (HDMS), to build up a Somali federal State, or at least decentralized regime. The paper is devoted to study the political relations between the HDMS and the Ethiopian regime that was very willing to support the idea of Somali federation within the framework of a greater regional federation among Eritrea, Somalia and Ethiopia. Ethiopian interference in Somali path towards independence was not able to achieve any concrete results in terms of State building, however it is important to understand the shaping of borders and their contestation in Southern-Eastern Horn of Africa. On one hand, the failure of federal plans covered the relevance of internal borders and social complexity of Somali society that tragically raised again during the last few decades, on the other hand the international Somali-Ethiopian frontier became more and more a divisive border between two different model of social and institutional space-building and their two respective States: Somalia and Ethiopia.
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THE PEOPLE OF WEJJERAT AND THEIR GAZ (ZEMECHA) AGAINST THE AFAR (1914-1943) [Abstract ID: 0502-16]
The article explores the history of the Wejjerat Gaz (Zemecha) tradition, which existed long ago and came to an end during Haile Selassie I’s rule, particularly in 1943. Gaz was an inter-ethnic war between the Wejjerat and the Afars and it was common before the eruption of the first Woyane rebellion. It has a long history. The Gaz tradition and its centrality among the Wejjerat people can be seen from their oral tradition, particularly in their poetry. The leader of Gaz was known among the Wejjerats as Abo Gaz (father of raid). The main purpose of the raid was to loot cattle and to enrich oneself. These conflicts seem to have been carried out in an attempt to control resources. They were also conducted as a ritualistic means through which the youth could show their abilities and capacities. They were also used for arranging marriage. On the other hand, the Afars also conducted counter-raids against the highlanders, i.e, Wejjerat, Raya Azebo and Enderta, and referred to them as “qarim”. These raids and counter-raids were evident until the 1943 peasant revolt popularly known as Gedamay Woyane. The consequence of the Gaz tradition is also analyzed briefly. These inter-ethnic conflicts had negative consequences for both the Wejjerat and the Afar people. Total human and material losses will perhaps never be known, for specific data about fatalities and damage to property are scarce. The methodology is purely qualitative since it is historical research. In writing this article, the researcher used primary and secondary sources. The article relies heavily on interviews because of the scarcity of written materials on the history of Gaz between the Wejjerats and Afars. Key informant interviews and focused group discussions were used as data collectiion methods. Forty key informants were interviewed to get information on the meaning of Gaz, its causes and repercussions. Four focus group discussions were conducted.
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THE ‘SOMALI THREAT’ AND THE ETHIOPIAN ORIENTAL BORDER: FROM OGADEN WAR TO AL-SHABBAB TERROR (1977-2017) [Abstract ID: 0502-03]
Somalia and Ethiopia’s border has historically been a convulsed space. Throughout the 20th century both states clashed over Ogaden. Between 1960-1964 these contenders confront each other over the control of this region, evolving into a total war between 1977-1978. Today the eastern border of Ethiopia has become one of the greatest dangers to its stability and security. The disintegration of the Somali state after 1991 complicated border relation. Although the expansionist pretensions of Somalia were nullified due to the disappearance of central power, the fact is that regional disintegration, warlordism, and the growing Islamist expansion, initiated by the group al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, pushed Ethiopia against the ropes. Moreover, international abandonment and power vacuum in Somalia led the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) to dominate the entire south and center of the country. The repeated threats of the Islamist government which called to "recover Ogaden" forced Ethiopia to launch an attack in 2006 to overthrow the ICU and support the expansion of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG). However, UTI’s breakdown did not finish the ongoing threat on its border since its armed wing, al-Shabbab, continued its own strategy based on claiming to achieve a united Great Somalia under the designs of a fundamentalist State. This paper will analyze Ethiopia's strategies to secure its border and to fight against threats that come from Somalia as terrorism or smuggling. International support, regional alliances and its influence in the different regions of Somalia are key to understand Ethiopia’s future and region’s stability and security. For this analysis different sources will be used in order to clarify the diverse conflicts that took place in the Eastern frontier. Historic sources will be used for the 20th century information and for the last two decades newspapers, media, and even social networks will be handled in order to fully understand and explain these situations. This paper will be usefull for Ethiopian Studies because it will clarify the relations between Ethiopia and Somalia and it will deeply analyze the view of Somalia as a historic threat.