Ethiopian federalism: Autonomy versus control in the Somali region

Third World Quarterly

Volumn 25, Issue 6, 2004, Pages 1131-1154

  Samatar, Abdi Ismail ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

AUTONOMY; ETHNIC GROUP; FEDERAL SYSTEM; LOCAL GOVERNMENT;

AFRICA; EAST AFRICA; ETHIOPIA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA;

EID: 27144468852     PISSN: 01436597     EISSN: 13602241     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0143659042000256931     Document Type: Article

References (90)

1. J Young, 'Regionalism and democracy in Ethiopia', Third World Quarterly, 19 (2), 1998, pp 191-204 (author's emphasis).
2. For a sophisticated analysis of ethnicity and citizenship in Africa, see M Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.
3. V Maphai, 'A season for sharing power', Journal of Democracy, 7 (1), 1996, pp 67-81. For detailed discussion of state restructuring in South Africa, see S Oldfield, 'State restructuring and urban transformation in South Africa: A negotiation of race, place and poverty', unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Minnesota, 2000.
4. Opposition parties also have significant representation in provincial councils in ANC-governed regions.
5. Meles Zenawi, quoted in Steven P Tucker, Ethiopia in transition, 1991-98', mimeo, 1998, p 23. Zenawi's misreading of the Rwandan catastrophe shows the superficiality of his party's understanding of social conditions in the country and beyond. For a contrasting reading of Rwanda, see M Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nationalism, and the Genocide in Rwanda, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.
6. E Keller, 'The ethnogenesis of Oromo Nation and its implications for politics in Ethiopia', Journal of Modern African Studies, 33 (4), 1995, pp 621-634.
7. For a more detailed discussion of these, see Tucker, 'Ethiopia'. See also M Ottaway, Democratization and Ethnic Nationalism: African and Eastern European Experiences, Washington, DC John Hopkins University Press: 1994; and
8. Ottaway, 'The Ethiopian transition: Democratization or new authoritarianism?', Northeast African Studies, 2 (3), 1995, pp 67-84.
9. P Henze, 'Is Ethiopia democratic? A political success story', Journal of Democracy, 9 (4), 1998, pp 40-54; and Young, 'Regionalism and democracy in Ethiopia'.
10. L Lata, The Ethiopian State at the Cross Roads: Decolonization and Democratization or Disintegration, Lawrence: Red Sea Press, 1999.
11. S Pausewang et al, Ethiopia since the Derg: A Decade of Pretensions and Performance, London: Zed, 2002. For a discussion of the authoritarian rule of the ruling party, see J Harbeson, 'Is Ethiopia democratic? A bureaucratic authoritarian regime', Journal of Democracy, 9 (4), 1998, pp 62-69.
12. Young, 'Regionalism and democracy in Ethiopia'; and K Mengisteab, 'New approaches to state building in Africa: The case of Ethiopia's ethnic-based federalism', African Studies Review, 40 (3), 1997, pp 111-132.
13. See also Mengisteab, 'Ethiopia: State building or imperial revival?', in AI Samatar & A Samatar (eds), The African State: Reconsiderations, Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2002, pp 177-190.
14. Henze, 'Is Ethiopia democratic?'.
15. R Joseph, 'Oldspeak vs newspeak', Journal of Democracy, 9 (4), 1998, pp 55-61; and Harbeson, 'Is Ethiopia democratic?'.
16. J Markakis, 'The Somali in Ethiopia', Review of African Political Economy, 70, 1996, pp 567-570; and M Khalief & M Doornbos, 'The Somali Region in Ethiopia: A neglected human rights tragedy', Review of African Political Economy, 91, 2002, pp 73-94. This piece provides a brief but general survey of the Somali experience in Ethiopia. Despite its usefulness two issues weaken its argument. First, the Somali authorities in the region since 1992 are portrayed as victims, only ignoring available evidence regarding the malfeasance of many and their opportunistic dealings. Second, the authors expose their biased agenda by confounding Somalis in the region with members of the Ogaden genealogical group. For instance, the authors talk about the responsibility of the Ogadeni intellectuals 'to persist in searching for the kind of accommodation and political solution that will serve the interest of the region and its people' (p 91). 15 The author formally interviewed 125 citizens in five communities and had onversations with a multitude of others between 1995 and 2002.
17. ONLF was an informally organised party and came into existence in the late 1980s. The word Ogaden is the name for one of the Somali genealogical groups that inhabit the region. Somalis from other genealogical groups maintained a distance from ONLF because of its clanish agenda and identity.
18. J Young, Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia: The Tigray People's Liberation Front, 1975-1991, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
19. TPLF leaders could invite whom they wished. This gave them tremendous power over who represented various communities.
20. Harbeson, 'Is Ethiopia democratic?'.
21. P Gilkes, Ethnic and Political Movements in Ethiopia and Somalia, London: Save the Children Fund, 1995; and Ottaway, 'The Ethiopian transition'.
22. Lata, The Ethiopian State at the Crossroads.
23. Others have confirmed the dominant party's manipulation of the election. S Pausewang, The 1994 Election and Democracy in Ethiopia, Oslo: Norwegian Institute of Human Rights, 1994.
24. Subsequent analyses have sustained this claim. See Pausewang et al, Ethiopia since the Derg.
25. Young, 'Regionalism and democracy in Ethiopia'.
26. The earliest resistance dates back to the early days of the 20th century. See Sh Abdi, Divine Madness, London: Zed, 1991;
27. SS Samatar, Oral Poetry and Somali Nationalism: The Case of Sayyid Mohamed Abdille Hassan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982;
28. and D Collins, A Tear for Somalia, London: Jarrolds, 1960, ch 11. This chapter describes Somali resistance to Ethiopia.
29. In fact, stalwarts of the Somali liberation movement claim that the Eritrean and Tigray movements received better support in the last decade of the struggle from the Somali government than they did.
30. EPRDF retained 32 of the 87 seats in the Council of Representatives. OLF was given the next largest bloc, thus ensuring EPRDF domination of the conference. See Tucker, Ethiopia in Transtion, p11.
31. Note the fragmentation of the political elite-mirroring that in Somalia-and how EPRDF encouraged this trend by distributing the seats among them along clan lines.
32. Seven different sources, including ONLF members, confirmed this. Interviews 1-4: Jigjiga, Dire Dawa and Addis Ababa, 1995, 1996.
33. Interview 2: Dire Dawa, 1996.
34. Abdimajid Hussein passed away in April 2004.
35. Interview 3: Jigjiga, 1996.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid.
38. Interviews 3 and 4: Jigjiga and Addis Ababa, 1996.
39. Interview 5: Jigjiga, 1997.
40. Ibid.
41. This MP wanted to underscore that the Somali Region did not even have its police force or other security services. Therefore he was worried that the region might be plunged into a civil war without the presence of a federal security system.
42. Group interview 1: Dire Dawa, 1997.
43. Group interview 2: Addis Ababa, 1997.
44. Interview 6: Jigjiga and Addis Ababa, 1997.
45. Interview 7: Jigjiga, 1998. The federal military selects the elders from various Qabelehs (neighborhoods) without consulting residents. The government pays these elders and thus they are dependent on such selection.
46. Interview 5: Jigjiga, 1997. An agent of the prime minister's office took part in these deliberations.
47. Group interview 3: Addis Ababa, 1995.
48. Interview 8, Addis Ababa, 1996; also Group Interview 2. Hussein was appointed to the ministerial post because he was close to the TPLF leaders. Many Somali MPs suggested that Hussein's close association with TPLF became a source of weakness for Somalis. They felt that TPLF leaders used him to micromanage Somali affairs.
49. This was not strictly adhered to as one group received six spots, while two other group each had two appointments.
50. Group interview 4: Addis Ababa, 1996.
51. Group interview 5: Jigjiga, 1997.
52. Ali Abdi was one of the key candidates federal authorities tried to unseat in the 2000 election. He lost his seat in the federal parliament. Eid Dahir was removed from the presidency and served nearly a year in prison and was later released. The author visited Dahir several times during his internment.
53. For a discussion of fiscal reform in Ethiopia, see E Keller, 'Ethnic federalism, fiscal reform, development and democracy in Ethiopia', African Journal of Political Sceince, 7 (1), 2002, pp 21-50.
54. Group interview 6: Jigjiga, 1998.
55. Interviews 8 and 9: Jigjiga, 1997.
56. Interview 10: Jigjiga, 1998.
57. Interviews 11 and 12: Jigjiga, 1997, 1999. This had been the case five times in previous years.
58. Interviews 13, 14 and 16: Jigjiga and Addis Ababa, 1996, 1997, 1998.
59. Group interview 7: Jigjiga, 1998. Those ONLF and League members interviewed confirmed this.
60. A contingent of the local police force was sent to the area between Harar and Jigjiga to watch for the president's return. This force fired on a vehicle containing senior federal military officers who were accompanying the president. The military rounded up the police, and no one was injured.
61. Interview 17: Jigjiga, 2000; and Interview 7, Jigjiga, 1998.
62. Pausewang et al, Ethiopia since the Derg, p 253.
63. League and ONLF members who attended these meetings declare that the two parties had by then lost whatever autonomy they had.
64. The Deputy Prime Minister's declaration exposed EPRDF's intention of creating ethnic parties that were accountable to them and not to local constituencies.
65. Federal authorities told the League that it should form a joint government with ONLF for three months until it put its house in order. This agenda was forced on the League, and the recommended regional joint government was formed.
66. Several participants in these meetings told the author how humiliating the sessions were for the Somalis. In Ethiopia, the term 'GimGeme', is used to characterise such 'evaluations'.
67. Five participants in these deliberations told me that the League chairman was by then an instrument for the wishes of the EPRDF. They also noted that he was not his old self but seemed resigned to go through the motions.
68. A new pattern of recruiting loyal and obedient political allies for the ruling party is emerging. An increasing number of regional authorities are sent to a training school in Addis Ababa called Tatiq. The first task of these political students is to confess openly that they are corrupt and to be consequently remorseful. The recruits are then given a political education. Critics note that this ruling party strategy is designed to create politic al supplicants in the region. These people can then be easily discarded when necessary because they have already admitted to corruption and other crimes. Some League members foresaw this scheme when their party was subjected to evaluation in early 1997. The EPRDF managers of the evaluations asked members to come forward and condemn the 'coup' and admit to their misdeeds. Critics compared this affair to a Somali tale that goes as follows. A lion convened a meeting for wild animals and told them he was going on a trip, but he was worried about his gravely ill mother. He instructed the animals not to call him if his mother died. The lion took his trip and then returned after a time. His mother had died in his absence. He convened another meeting upon his return and asked the animals the question: Where is my mother? A hyena answered the question honestly. It was killed for disobeying the lion's instruction. Then came a zebra who reported, in order to avoid the hyena's fate, that the lion's mother was still alive. It was killed for not telling the truth. Then it was the fox's turn. Having seen the fate of the truth teller and liar, it quickly shaved the hair off one side of its head. Then the lion came to ask the fox the dreaded question. The fox turned and said to the lion, 'I would not have shaved this side of my head if your mother was alive'. The lion was bewildered and asked again if his mother was dead. The fox turned its head to the other side and retorted, 'I would not have left this side unshaven if your mother was dead'. The lion was not able to pin down the fox, and so the fox was saved. The moral of the story, according to critics, is that the only Somali party members who survived and got inducted into the new party were those who condemned the 'coup' and admitted to being corrupt.
69. The law governing political party formation in Ethiopia requires that at least 750 delegates participate in the convention when a party is being formed.
70. Some of Hussein's old colleagues noted that he was frustrated by some of EPRDF's intrusive intervention in the region but remained in his ministerial post until he found a job with the United Nations. Obtaining the UN job required the federal government's support.
71. Profile of the Somali People Democratic Party, party pamphlet, Jigjiga: SPDP.
72. Interview 18: Jigjiga, 2002.
73. The power struggle within the TPLF in 2001 that led to some of its senior leaders' ouster and imprisonment has not altered the relationship between the Somali authority and the Addis Ababa regime.
74. Such advisors are the key instruments of controlling regional leaders. According to a recent study: 'Perhaps the most notable form of control is applied through the presence of Tigrayan "advisers" at regional and local administrative levels. These "advise" the local ethnic representatives who fill the formal positions.' Pausewang et al, Ethiopia since the Derg, p 163.
75. Numerous interviews with MPs and executive members confirmed this claim.
76. In one instance I was waiting for an appointment in the regional government's main office and there was a large crowd gathered outside the building. A bus approached the building and then five men got of the bus and walked into the building. Members of the crowd began to talk about these individuals. The language they used to describe these individual was revealing. The five men were federal advisers. Three were Tigray, one Amhara, one Gurag. The commentators described the Tigray advisors as 'Mareehan'. Mareehan was the late Somali dictator's genealogical group. The point of the commentators was that a Tigray is a member of the privileged ruling family, as were the Mareehan in Somalia.
77. Interview 19: Jigjiga, 2000. The federal authorities' response during the drought-triggered famine of 1999-2000 alienated the population further. A Somali NGO distributed a report over the internet, indicating that large numbers of people were dying of starvation in the Somali Region, particularly in the vicinity of Godey. The federal authorities were unhappy with the report for it exposed its misplaced priorities of spending millions of dollars on weapons while significant number of its citizens were starving to death. The NGO was forced to flee the country. Other NGOs noted that local authorities reported to the federal government about the crisis in the region, but the latter decided to conduct a study to find out whether conditions warranted its attention. In the meantime several thousand people died.
78. This is noted on page 1 of the party's programme. X.D.SH.S, Barnaamijka Siyaasadeed EE Xisbiga Dimoqradiga EE Shacbiga Soomaliyeed, 1999, no place or publisher given.
79. They contrast this with the role Somali men played in the front lines of the Ethiopian war with Eritrea. In 2002 some of the war veterans demonstrated in Jigjiga to attract attention to their plight. The police killed two of the demonstrators.
80. It appears that SPDP employees are on the regional government's payroll. Field notes: Jigjiga, April 1999.
81. The author's conversations with people in five communities in the region indicate that the majority of the population in these communities thought the election was an exercise in fraud and intimidation. Field notes, June 2001, December 2001. For comparative cases in other regions, see Pausewang et al, Ethiopia since the Derg.
82. Field notes: Jigjiga, January 2000.
83. The president was imprisoned shortly after the election. The author visited him in Jigjiga district jail.
84. AI Samatar, 'Leadership and ethnicity in the making of African state models: Botswana versus Somalia, Third World Quarterly, 18 (4), 1997, pp 687-707.
85. This contrasts sharply with the way the government of national unity works in democratic South Africa. Junior partners in the unity government nominate candidates to their allotted ministerial positions. Presidents Mandela and Mbeki had no control over the nomination of IFP ministers.
86. Group interview 7: Jigjiga, 2002.
87. Field notes, 2002. Also interview 20: Addis Ababa, 2002.
88. As other researchers have noted: 'While the army was reduced, local police forces were beefed up, and supported by various forces at regional and zonal level. Police and local militia act as control organs of the party at local level. According to Schroder's documentation, the total of all security forces is approximately the same as in Mengistu's time.' Pausewang et al, Ethiopia since the Derg, p 234.
89. Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, The 1994 Population and Housing Census of Ethiopia, Vol II, Addis Ababa: Central Statistical Authority, 1999.
90. M Wolde Mariam, 'The background of the Ethio-Somalian boundary dispute, Journal of Modern African Studies, 2 (2), 1964, pp 189-219.