A History of the Ogaden (Western Somali) Struggle for Self-Determination Part I (1300-2007)

Preface

The Ogaden region is inhabited by Somalis and is geographically part of Ethiopia, but politically the region has yet to become part of Ethiopia. The region has never seen peace since the scramble for Africa in the nineteenth century, and as a result of wars and repression by the successive Ethiopian governments the inhabitants are constantly displaced. Over a million people fled to neighbouring countries during the 1970s and 1980s and are still leaving the region because of fear of prosecution. The insecurity, displacement and repression that persist in the region profoundly affected the lives and livelihood of the inhabitants in an extremely negative manner. Since the last Ethiopian occupation of the region after the Second World War the region has been in a war or warlike situation, and as a result normal life is unknown there, and instead, hunger, refugee crises and human rights abuses became the norms.

Despite the long suffering of the Somali people in the Ogaden region, the root cause of their ordeal was not dealt with nor did the victims receive due attention from the international community. Because of, among other things, lack of awareness about the plight of the inhabitants and misconception about the conflict, the international community has not intervened so far on behalf of the victims. Ethiopia’s voice has always been louder than that of the inhabitants of the Ogaden region and, as a result, it misrepresented the issue in the international forums, and the inhabitants have been unable to reach out to the wider world.

The Somali people in the Ogaden deserve a better life in which they can decide their own destiny like all other peoples and those who care about justice are expected to support that goal in the name of humanity. The Somali people in that region have been striving to regain their freedom and their basic human rights, including the right to self-determination, but so far, they have been unable to remove the occupants from their land and free themselves. They see the ending of the occupation as the key to the alleviation of their suffering and are determined to pursue the liberation goal despite the odds against them.

The Ogaden issue is the cockpit of the Horn of Africa, and resolving that problem is the key to the resolutions of the conflicts and turmoil in the Horn—a resolution that will not only alleviate the suffering of the inhabitants of that region but will also make that part of the world a better place to live in.

Although I am an amateur historian (I am an economist and sociologist by profession), I have been observing the development of the region since the 1970s and have written a book and articles about this subject in the past. The work relies on historical data, recorded by local and international historians, colonial governments, and international organizations as well as eyewitness accounts.

This book aims to contribute to the understanding of the problem and to draw to it the attention of those who could make a difference to the plight of the Somali people in the Ogaden. I recognize that this is a complex conflict and a simple book as this will have a limited influence on the present reality on the ground. Nevertheless, it is my hope that at least it will achieve its aim to shed light on some of the issues related to the conflict and thereby possibly contribute to the future resolution.

Introduction

The land this book is about is known globally as the Ogaden. The exact date the territory was named Ogaden is not known, but it has been called by that name since the eighteenth century. Despite its worldwide use, the name Ogaden is not fully endorsed by all the inhabitants of the region as the name of their land. Some sections of the Somali inhabitants feel unease about the name Ogaden because the largest clan in the region is called Ogaadeen and this name mixing arouses a sense of exclusion, which is felt by the non-Ogaadeen clans in the region. To neutralize that feeling and safeguard the unity of the people some liberation movements, like the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF), changed the name of the region from Ogaden to Western Somali and others such as the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) kept using Ogaden as the name of the country to avoid confusion in the international arena. The successive Ethiopian regimes also used different names for the region such as Hararghe, Ogaden and the Somali State.

The inhabitants of the region have yet to vote on a name of their own choosing for their land. The territory has been under occupation since the scramble for Africa, and for that reason, the people of the region were unable to choose a name for their land. It is to be hoped that it will not be long before they regain their sovereignty and can do that. In the meantime, in the book, we call the region both the Ogaden and Western Somali interchangeably or jointly. We use these two most popular names in the region for historical reasons as well as for inclusion considerations.

The Ogaden is situated in the Horn of Africa, and it has borders with Somalia, Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia, and is under the latter’s administration. The area of its land is estimated at 370 000–400 000 sq. km. A genuine census has never been taken, but the population is estimated at between 4 and 5 million and is ethnically Somali. It is a semi-arid land, and the main livelihoods are pastoralism and farming. Although the region is one of the poorest in Ethiopia it is rich in natural resources such as copper, gold, oil and natural gas.

The territory was historically part of the Greater Somali Nation before the Somali Nation was divided into five parts by the colonial powers (Britain, Ethiopia, France and Italy); during the scramble for Africa and it was one of the four parts that came under British administration during the Second World War. The territory’s status changed from full independence and part of the Greater Somali Nation to under attack, to partly occupied and eventually to fully occupied. After the occupation it also changed hands several times as the competing powers of Britain, Italy and Ethiopia fought for its control. During the scramble for Africa, Ethiopia and Italy competed for the control of the Ogaden and fought over it during the 1930s. Likewise, Britain and Italy fought for control of the region during the Second World War. Finally, the territory was gradually handed to Ethiopia after the Second World War, and the transfer was completed in 1955 when Britain handed over the last part of the Ogaden (Haud and Reserve Area) to Ethiopia.

But the occupation was never accepted by the Somalis in general and in particular by those living in the Ogaden. The Somali people in the Ogaden remain defiant. They resisted the occupation, and the Ogaden has been one of the hot spots of the world since the scramble for the Horn of Africa. Sayyid Mohammed Abdille Hassan started his anti-colonial military campaign in the Ogaden in 1900. In the 1960s and 1970s, Ethiopia and Somalia fought two wars over the Ogaden and the superpowers (USA and USSR/Russia) were both involved in the conflict. Moreover, the successive Ethiopian governments have remained at war with the inhabitants of the region since Ethiopia’s occupation.

Despite the involvement of the big powers, the Ogaden conflict did not attract proper international attention and is one of the most misunderstood problems in the world. The misconception about that conflict is also the main reason for the lack of a resolution to it. Because of Ethiopia’s misrepresentation of the conflict, a cover-up by the imperialist powers, and the inhabitants’ inability to reach out to the wider world, the conflict is often erroneously seen as a dispute between Somalia and Ethiopia in international arenas, and the liberation fighters there described as aggressors or terrorists by Ethiopia and its allies. The imperialist European powers that helped Ethiopia to occupy and colonize the Ogaden covered up the tragedy and the superpowers (USA and USSR) who replaced them became the chief backers of the Ethiopian occupation policies afterwards. The superpowers not only supported the successive governments in Addis-Ababa in colonizing the Ogaden but also kept silent about the suffering, the unspeakable human rights violations and destruction that followed the occupation. Taking advantage of this support and the consequently favourable situation in which it found itself, Ethiopia pursued extremely oppressive policies towards the inhabitants and at the same time kept the international community in the dark about the plight of the people there by systematically misleading the world public opinion. The conflict in the Ogaden with its local, regional and international dimensions, negatively affected the Horn of Africa region, although the Ogaden inhabitants bore the brunt of the ensuing suffering and devastation.

The Somali people in the Ogaden, however, never gave up hope and remained defiant, despite the odds against them. They refused the subjugation and resisted the occupation with all possible means. The struggle for freedom and human dignity began as a reaction to the occupation and subsequent humiliations and gross violations of human rights. The struggle for the liberation of the Ogaden was mainly driven by two forces, namely the society’s dream to take its destiny into its own hands and the often harsh realities on the ground. Both forces affected the struggle directly and indirectly by interacting with one another and in turn influencing the struggle. The dream for self-determination has itself been guided mainly by nationalism, religion and – most important of all – the need to safeguard human rights. These pillars of the dream have been the main fuel for the struggle machine; that is, they provided the rationale for the liberation struggle. Although the dream was stronger at some times than at others, it never died because of the human rights violation factor.

The struggle for the liberation of the Ogaden began as a resistance to the expansionist campaigns of the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia in the fourteenth century and that resistance was led by the Islamic emirate of Adal. After the partition of the Somali Nation, the Ogaden struggle became part of the wider Somali nationalist struggle against the colonialists until 1960 when Somalia became independent. Like the other two Somali lands still under colonial rule (Djibouti and NFD), the Somali people in the Ogaden continued their struggle on their own, but because of the Somali dream of Greater Somalia that struggle was very much aided and influenced by Somalia. During the 1980s the Somalis in the Ogaden lost connection with Somalia as the dream of Greater Somalia was coming to an end. Since then, the struggle has been going on independently inside and outside the Ogaden.

In this book, we will investigate the historical development of the society’s struggle to regain its independence. The core of the investigation is how this freedom dream lived with different generations of the Somali society in the Ogaden during the occupation period, what prompted the formation of freedom fighters both armed and unarmed and how they performed. Taking armed conflicts, and political, social and human rights activism as indicators of the level of the struggle as well as the strength of the dream to live in freedom, the ups and downs of the struggle for self-determination will be examined using observation, eyewitness accounts and historical data. The history starts with the time when the people of the region largely lived in freedom in their homeland, except for some attacks on the western parts of the territory, and the different stages of the struggle will be highlighted. The history ends with the situation at the time of the writing of this book and outlines prospects for the resolution of the conflict.

1 The Adal Resistance to the Abyssinian Expansion

The root causes of the conflict; the armed resistance; the fall of Harar and the collapse of Adal

1.1 The Root Causes of the Conflict

The Somali-dominated Sultanate of Adal (Awdal in Somali) emerged in the fourteenth century, following the invasion of the Muslim emirate of Ifat and outlying Muslim areas by Abyssinia in the early 1320s. Ifat, which was ruled by the Walasma family, was occupied and its leader, Haqedin I, was murdered by the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia. Haqedin’s son Sabredin, who succeeded him led a resistance army, established an alliance with the neighbouring Somali principality of Adal and other Muslim emirates, and confronted the invading Amhara army. Although it put up fierce resistance the Muslim alliance was eventually defeated in 1332, and both Sabredin and the king of Adal were killed.

The resistance began by Sabredin continued under the leadership of his great-grandsons Haqedin II and his younger brother Se’adedin. Haqedin transferred his political centre from Ifat to Dakkar, a place near Harar, which was under Adal influence. Later the remnant of Ifat joined Adal and the Walasma princes became rulers of the new Adal sultanate.

The Ogaden was part of Adal, which also encompassed Berbera and Zeila and most of today northern Somalia and some Danakil territories. The sultanate was a Muslim kingdom in outlook with a diverse ethnic background of Somalis, Hararis, Danakils and Arabs, but its population was predominantly of Somali origin. The Somali dominated sultanate was first based in Zeila but later moved to Harar, the capital city of the Ogaden at the time, and remained capital until its occupation in the nineteenth century except for a short period (1577–1643) in Awsa.

On the other hand, Tigray and Amhara people were the predominant ethnic groups of the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia; however, the kingdom was ruled at the time by Amhara dynasty. The Amhara dynasty (also called the Solomonic dynasty), restored in 1270 by Emperor Yakunno Amlak, was different from the other dynasties that preceded it (Zagwe and Askum) in that it did not have a fixed capital. The Amhara kings moved from place to place, often within the central parts of the kingdom depending on the season and military campaign. Because of the decline of Askum and the northern trade routes following the shift of the dynasty from Tigray to Amhara, Zeila became the kingdom’s most important trade route. Territorial acquisition was one of the main aims of the Amhara dynasty and they wanted to expand the empire eastward and southward along the trade route to Aden. Christianity was their guideline and spreading and defending Christianity was their main goal. They proclaimed to be the champions of Christianity in the Horn of Africa and on that claim always sought European support. The Europeans often responded positively, both as private individuals and as governments, to the Abyssinians’ plea for help whenever they were defeated by Adal.

Before the attack on Ifat, the Muslims and the Christians largely coexisted peacefully, and the Muslims had high respect for the Abyssinian kingdom because Nejashi, the Ethiopian king who reigned during the rise of Islam, gave refuge to some of the first followers (sahaba) of the Prophet Mohammed, who fled from the persecution of the Mecca pagans in 616. The daughter of the prophet Rakiya, her husband Othman bin Affan (third khalif), and Ja’far bin Abu Talib (cousin of the prophet) were among the 15 followers that fled to Abyssinia. It is reported that Prophet Mohammed advised these followers to go to Abyssinia and told them that: ‘In Abyssinia, there was a king in whose realm no one is wronged.’¹ Islam came to Ethiopia first through these sahabas and Nejashi was among the first Ethiopians who accepted Islam, although he did not reveal his faith in public.

The cause of hatred that led to the attack on Ifat and the subsequent invasion of Adal is a matter for debate. However, historians often mention two possible causes, namely the spread of Islam and trade. Islam was spreading peacefully at a high speed all over Ethiopia and the Christian kingdom felt a threat to its very existence because of this rapid spread of Islam. Abyssinia also wanted to control the trade route to the Gulf of Aden for commercial and religious reasons. Its traditional route through Eritrea became too long after the kingdom moved to Shoa and the trade route through Zeila became more important. ‘The rise of the Solomonic dynasty, and the resultant shift of the centre to southern Amhara and Shoa, gave a particular significance to the Zeila routes in which the Christian kings began to show an ever-increasing interest. Apparently motivated by these considerations, we see the first Solomonic king Yekunno-Amlak, interfering actively in the internal conflicts of the Mahzumite princes of the sultanate of Shoa as well as in the final showdown between the latter and the kingdom of Ifat.’² The trade route was also the Islamization route because Islam spread mainly through the traders and its control would have served both purposes, and this was probably the main reason for the aggression. Faith expansion meant also land expansion and the two things were two sides of one coin for both the Christian and Muslim kingdoms.

Whatever the reason, Abyssinia conquered several Muslim emirates – of which Ifat was the biggest – and also invaded Adal territories. Adal responded to the Abyssinian invasion by declaring jihad on it. As mentioned above, both systems of government were based on religious teachings, and religious thinking provided justification for the war. According to Islam, jihad (struggle) is obligatory for every Muslim whenever Muslim land is under attack. Adal rose to that responsibility of defending the Muslims and their land from the invading infidels.

For about six centuries Adal remained on the front line, defending itself from the Abyssinian invasions and periodical Oromo incursions. Moved by religious sentiments, the devastation left by the war and the brutality of the invaders, the inhabitants usually rallied behind their leaders and the rulers easily mobilized the population for jihad whenever attacked. Usually, the heavier the attack, the stronger the counterattack, and peaks of the resistance were often preceded by heavy attacks and vice versa.

The Abyssinian attacks were very intense in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries but ceased in the middle of the seventeenth century and did not come back until the last half of the nineteenth century when Menelik, in collaboration with some European powers, succeeded in eliminating Adal and occupied Harar.

Map 1-1: North-Eastern Africa — major medieval trade routes

1.2 The Armed Resistance

As we saw in the preceding section, the resistance that Adal undertook was imposed on it by the Christian kingdom under the leadership of the Amhara dynasty that was founded by Yekunno Amlak, who reigned from 1270 to 1285. The rulers of the sultanate not only defended the Somali regions under their sphere of influence, but they also contested the Abyssinian control over southern highlands by supporting the Muslim emirates there. The Abyssinian threat began in 1328 when its ruler Amda Seyon invaded Ifat and parts of Adal and captured Sultan Haqedin I of Ifat himself. His son Sabredin, who succeeded him, organized a Muslim coalition resistance, which included Adal and some other Muslim emirates. In the early stages, the coalition was successful and repulsed the Abyssinian invaders, but due to internal conflicts, the Muslim alliance was defeated by Amda Seyon in 1332. Seyon’s son Sayfa-Ar’ad, who succeeded him, followed his father’s hard-line policies toward the Muslims.

During the reign of Sayfa-Ar’ad’s eldest son, Wurde Asfare (1372–82), a new development took place on the opposing Muslim side. What was left of Ifat joined Adal and Haqedin II, the grandson of Sabredin, became the new sultan of Adal. Soon after he took over the leadership of Adal, Haqedin reorganized the resistance forces, took- command and waged counter-offensive campaigns against the Abyssinians. He was killed in action in the end and his brother Se’adedin succeeded him. Se’adedin became a major challenger to Sayfa-Ar’ad’s second son, Dawit I (1382–1412). Adal was invaded by Dawit several times and although he met strong resistance and was defeated many times, he had the final victory. In 1403 Dawit led a series of campaigns into the very heart of the Harar plateau and repeatedly defeated Se’adedin, whom he pursued as far as Zeila, where the sultan was captured and killed. Se’adedin’s family fled to Yemen after his murder and stayed there some years.

The second wave of attacks happened during the years 1414–1429 when the then Abyssinian leader, Yishaq, waged a series of wars on the Somalis in the Ogaden. In those attacks many innocent people were killed, their belongings looted, their properties destroyed, and mosques were turned into churches. Despite the humiliation, the suffering and the power vacuum after the killing of Se’adedin and the subsequent self-exile of the Royal Walasma family, this Abyssinian victory did not last long. After a few years in exile in Yemen, the ten sons of Se’adedin returned, revived the Walasma power in Adal and reorganized the resistance. They conducted offensive campaigns, and in a short period, they succeed in liberating the territories occupied by the Christian kingdom after the death of their father and killed both the Amhara kings of Tewodros and Yishaq in the fighting. They drove not only the enemy from the Adal territories, but pursued the Amhara army until they crossed their original border near the Awash River:

Sabredin (1409–18), Mansur (1418–25) Jemaldin (1425–32) and Badlay (1432–45) successively took over their father’s throne in Adal, and they all conducted energetic campaigns against the occupation forces of the Christian empire. It appears that they were increasingly successful in forcing the Christians to evacuate their settlements within Adali territory. The conflict had become so desperate that, in their hopeless attempts to hold on to the Adali territories acquired since Se’adedin’s death, both Tewodros (1412–13) and Yishaq (1413–30) seem to have lost their lives while fighting the Walasma princes. For a period of four years after Yishaq’s death, the political situation in the Christian empire was very chaotic, and Jemaldin (1425–32) took advantage of this to score a number of easy victories on the frontier. His brother Ahmed Badlay (1432–45) continued the successes of his brother.³

Despite the defeat, the Abyssinian raids on Adal territories resumed after Zara Ya’qob (1434–68) took over the reign of power. The new ruler, whom Edward Ullendorf the British Ethiopianist, called ‘the greatest ruler Ethiopia had since Ezana’⁴, reformed the kingdom. Zara Ya’qob continued the attacks against the Muslims after he reorganized both the church and the state and united them. But the Adal sultanate was ready to defend itself. Sultan Badlay regrouped the Adal army and conducted a counter-offensive against the invading forces. He attacked the Abyssinians and regained some territory lost earlier to the invading army, but he was killed while in action:

Badlay led many raids, which were always successful and which created much havoc within the frontier provinces of the Christian empire. Finally, however, a renewed invasion of Dawaro by him was repulsed by the Christian army in 1445. Zara Ya’qob himself led the defences of Dawaro, Badlay was killed in action, and the Muslim army suffered considerable casualties.⁵

Ya’qob boasted over the defeat of the Muslims and like his predecessor Yishaq, he mentioned in particular the Somalis and listed Mogadishu among the Somali principalities that he alleged to have supported Adal in the fighting. This claim indicates the dominant position of the Somalis within Adal. Although Ya’qob’s victory over Badlay relaxed the military pressure from Adal for about forty years, he could never recover the territories that had been acquired by Dawit, Tewodros and Yishaq in the Harar plateau, which was to remain completely outside the limits of the Christian kingdom until the end of the nineteenth century. However, he was able to maintain his power in the frontier provinces of Ifat, Dawaro and Bali, which has been in Christian hands since the fourteenth century.

Ya’qob’s successor, Ba’eda Maryam (1468–78), followed his hardline approach against the Muslims, especially in Dawaro and Bali, until he began to suffer disastrous military reverses in his conflicts with the kingdom of Adal towards the end of his reign. The emergence of Amir Mahfuz in the 1480s as the new challenger of the highlanders, however, changed the balance of power in favour of the Muslims. Mahfuz, the Amir of Harar who became the chief of the Adal army, stepped up the frontier struggle and conducted counter-offensive campaigns against the Christian kingdom. Mahfuz often raided frontier regions, scored repeated successes, killed the Abyssinian king and destroyed the military and the economy of the Christian kingdom:

Throughout the reigns of Eskender (1478–94) and Na’od (1494–1508), Mahfuz successfully attacked the frontier provinces. Large number of Christian military colonists were either killed or taken into slavery, and the Muslims always returned to Adal with huge spoils in slaves and cattle. The emperor, Na’od, himself died in 1508 while trying to defend the province of Ifat from one of the regular forays of Imam Mahfuz.⁶

Alarmed by the revival of the Adal power, which was indicated by the successive military successes of Amir Mahfuz, the Amhara dynasty sought European help. The Ethiopian ruler, Na’od, was killed in 1508 in Ifat in a campaign against the Muslims when his son, Lebna Dengel, was only seven years old. The Queen Mother, Eleni, who became regent for the new young Crown Prince, sent an Armenian named Mateus to Portugal to ask for help for Ethiopia in resisting the Muslim pressure. ‘Mateus proceeded to Europe by way of India, had a series of misadventures, but finally reached the court of King Monoel I in Lisbon in 1514, where he was well received.’⁷

In 1516 Amir Mahfuz, the governor of Harar led an expedition to confront the Abyssinians and eliminate their threat. But another threat came from the Portuguese who responded to the Ethiopian request for help and attacked Zeila. The Portuguese fleet under Lobe Soarez reached Zeila at a time when its garrison was fighting under Mahfuz in the highlands against the Abyssinians. Zeila was burnt and in a short period occupied by the Portuguese, and Mahfuz did not come back from that expedition.

The attack on Zeila and the death of Amir Mahfuz were big blows to the Somali sultanate. Morale was very low, and the decentralized emirates disintegrated. It also led to conflicts between the amirs and the army chiefs. The result of all this was the assassination of the king of the Adal sultanate, Sultan Mohammed, the fall of the royal Walasma family, and the change of the seat of the sultanate from Zeila to Harar in 1520. On the mediation of Sultan Abubakr, the capital city was changed and a new leader by the name of Imam Ahmed Ibrahim Alghazi (Gragn: ‘left-handed’ in Amharic) was also elected.

The new leader, who also held the position of Chief of Staff, reversed the balance of power in the Horn in favour of the Somalis within a short period. The man had both vision and vigour and the first thing he did was to change the old strategy of defence engagement to an offensive one. In the past, the army of the sultanate used to defend its territory, but under the new leader, the aim was not only to defend the Somalis but to liberate all the Muslim emirates under the Abyssinian rule and destroy the power base of the enemy.

Imam Ahmed first attacked the Abyssinians in 1529, inflicted a heavy defeat on Dengel, but withdrew for an internal reorganization of his sultanate. Two years later he launched a major attack on the highlanders and by 1533 he liberated all the Muslim emirates. The liberated Muslim emirates included Bali, Sidama, Dawaro and Hadiya.