Security isses in Horn of Africa

The following text is a response sent to an email dispatched to me by the Chairman of the exiled Oromo Parliamentarians who struggle for the Independence and Self-determination of the 5 millennia long Kushitic Ethiopian Nation of the Oromos.
The Hamitic - Kushitic Oromo Nation - due to criminal, inhuman and evil persecution conceived by the colonial powers (France, England and America) and executed by the colonially promoted barbaric and incestuous pseudo-Christian Abyssinians - lost their kingdoms and were engulfed within the Cemetery of Nations Fake Ethiopia, which consists in the world's most tyrannical realm and the location of the world's more abhorrent, more enduring, and more multifaceted genocides. There are more than 45 million Oromos in Abyssinia (Fake Ethiopia) and Kenya today, despite the notorious and pathetic falsehood propagated by Wikipedia.
The present text enumerates all the major points of historical distortion and falsification carried out and diffused by the colonial academia, mass media, and diplomats, as well as by their local agents and criminal executioners, i.e. the barbaric, incestuous and Anti-Christian tribes of Amhara and Tigray (: the Abyssinians), who usurped the fair name of Ethiopia, which historically denotes the land of North Sudan and the Kushitic Nation that prospered there either in the Antiquity or in the Christian Era. Both, the Oromos and the Arabic-speaking (but not Arab) populations of Northern-Central Sudan are the descendants of Ancient Sudan's (i.e. Ancient Ethiopia's) Kushitic populations.
Representative photographic documentation was herewith added to the text in order to better illustrate the topic.

Refutation of historical forgeries propagated by European colonials and incestuous Abyssinians
First published here:
https://megalommatiscomments.wordpress.com/2017/07/26/kushitic-oromos-ancestry-in-ethiopia-ancient-sudan-semitic-amharas-tigrays-abyssinians-ancestry-in-yemen/

Le choix de traiter le processus de paix pour l’Erythrée et L’Ethiopie comme sujet de mémoire est influencé par mon immense désir de voir la paix s´installer non seulement entre ces deux Etats, mais également dans  toute la région de la Corne de l’Afrique ébranlée depuis des décennies par des conflits meurtriers, du Soudan jusqu’en Somalie.
Pour cela la résolution du  conflit entre l’Ethiopie et l’Erythrée, qui persiste encore, est jugée comme un facteur crucial tant les répercussions sont considérables pour les autres conflits de la région. Ces répercussions s´étendent également aux Etats occidentaux à travers les vagues de réfugiés, de migrants,  ou encore des actes de piraterie observés récemment en Somalie et largement médiatisés. Cela dit, il ne faut pas oublier les craintes de voir s´installer un islamisme militant et internationalisé dans la région qui fait beaucoup parler d´elle dans la presse actuelle. Le conflit s’est donc internationalisé .
Par ailleurs, il est important d´évoquer le rôle que joue et que peut jouer le droit international dans la résolution des conflits inter- étatiques à travers  ce cas.
Le projet a donc comme but d´analyser le processus de paix pour en tirer des conclusions basées sur les résultats, d’éclairer le rôle que joue et que peut jouer le droit international pour le maintien de la paix dans le monde et plus spécialement pour le cas analysé. Je commence par un aperçu du conflit comme introduction. Ensuite je présente les deux accords fondamentaux pour l’analyse : les accords d´Alger. J´analyserai après, le déroulement des procédures envisagées dans ces accords. Là-dessus, je me concentrerai sur la mission des Nations Unies pour l’Erythrée et l’Ethiopie (MINUEE) et le travail de la commission frontalière pour l’Erythrée et l’Ethiopie (CFEE). Les tentatives diplomatiques pour résoudre la crise entre les deux Etats seront également mentionnées, notamment la crise de démarcation de la frontière. Avant de passer à la conclusion j’analyserai l’exigence érythréenne d’une action punitive par le Conseil de sécurité des Nations Unies en mettant en question l’obligation et  la probabilité d’une telle action. La conclusion contient les résultats majeurs de l’analyse du processus de paix et donne une idée sur l’efficacité du droit international face à la souveraineté des Etats.

The partnership between the European Union (EU) and the African Union (AU) in Darfur is attracting renewed, and critical attention on the former’s growing political role in Africa. The EU is a major aid provider in Africa and has tended, since the beginning of the 1990s, to expand its exclusively developmental
role to a more political one through a greater involvement in security issues. In the Horn of Africa, however, most former colonial powers have only maintained loose links with their former colonies, with the obvious exception of France in Djibouti. The Horn’s very strategic location has slowly made it a US chasse gardée where the EU and its member states often
remain behind the scene. Since the 9/11 attacks it has been one of the regions most closely observed by Western intelligence. Counter-terrorism issues have clearly influenced US politics in the region. This Briefing will examine whether the EU shares these and other US concerns.

This article traces the rise and decline of the Somali jihadi-insurgent group al-Shabab from 2006 to 2014. Particular attention is paid to the group’s implementation of a philistine and coercive interpretation of Shariah in areas under its control, the political economy of insurgent violence, local governing administrations, and internal schisms and recent deadly infighting. The group’s potential future trajectory is also assessed.

Please see the references (end notes) at: http://www.turkishreview.org/newsDetail_getNewsById.action?sectionId=360&newsId=223635

This paper identifies the root causes and general typology of the widespread phenomena of piracy off the coast of Somalia. It shows that piracy in this region started as a direct response to illegal fishing with widespread claims of hazardous waste dumping offering added moral justification. It argues that the two international crimes that are the root causes of Somali piracy constitute corporate terrorism at sea. The alacrity of the earliest illegal trawlers that were captured by the fishermen to pay ransom unleashed the scourge of criminal/ransom piracy that has overshadowed – in figures and discourse – 'defensive' piracy. Restoring the state and combating poverty can help minimize the favorable conditions that latter-day pirates exploited to launch their trade; but will not eradicate piracy without successfully containing the corporate terrorism that triggered it in the first place. Moreover, combating poverty among fishing coastal communities require the eradication of illegal fishing.

From Hollywood films to some Chinese popular perceptions of their Eastern neighbors, piracy and pirates retain a powerful hold in contemporary culture. However, it is their most recent incarnation in areas like the Gulf of Guinea, the Malacca Straits, and the Horn of Africa, that is carefully followed by anybody involved in maritime affairs, from ship owners and operators to naval officers and international lawyers. Among other aspects of piracy, the legal regime of pirates and operations against them is of the foremost importance, and therefore any volume devoted to them deserves a careful look.

The paper attempts to explain the active policies adopted by Saudi Arabia and UAE towards the horn of Africa, which could be attributed to the existence of rival regional powers, especially Iran and Turkey, and their adoption of policies that deemed threatening to Riyadh and AbuDhabi. To this purpose, the paper utilizes “alliance politics” to explain how both countries are containing regional threats by building alliances with countries in the horn of Africa, through promoting military and trade relations, and boosting development.

Ethiopia, having all the assets [natural and human resources] the rest of Africa have, in addition to being a pioneer in cementing African unity and, forming and hosting the OAU (now AU), and it influence in shaping the African political discourse [more specifically in the horn of Africa (HOA)] – the global powers from West to East have always competed to win Ethiopia as their sole trophy in the geopolitically significant Horn of Africa.

With the exception of the Derg regime that was forced to stick with the communist bloc betrayed by the west that sided with Somalia’s ZaedBarre& the separatist insurgents in the north, and the TPLF- led – EPRDF regime that made itself of full service to the western powers who brought them to power while playing with the Chinese along the side, Ethiopia has always taken a neutral stance in global political affairs – thereby expanding its diplomatic reach on all fronts from Africa to Europe, from Middle East to the Caribbean, and from the US to Russia, China, Japan, Korea and other Asian powerhouses.

Under Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia has further strengthened its diplomatic ties with the Middle East who relied on Africa for food and water security – and port and military domination over the Red Sea and Bab-el-Mandeb, while influencing the global political dynamics using their oil resource as leverage. Similarly, Ethiopia has strengthened its diplomatic ties with China and Russia – whose growing economic and military influence in HOA countries [ET, ERI, SOM, DJI and SUD] and the rest of Africa is of immense threat to western [most particularly, US] interest in the region.

As a result, Ethiopia is under the surge of diplomatic pressures on account of several strategic issues arising from the GERD, global geopolitical rivalry between western powers, China & Russia; as well as some Middle East/Arab states. Sudan's irredentist border claims as potential trigger of high risk border conflict in the horizon, the intense global political pressure on Ethiopia is being shooted from all sides-be it the US, UK, European Union and the Arab League. It is to be noted that all these problems are coupled with one another. Decoupling these problems might help the Ethiopian government and the diplomatic community.

The 'They are the Enemy, so Beware of Them' film series began with the release of the first video instalment in January 2012 during a period when Al-Shabaab was facing severe political, financial, and military pressures due to a renewed series of offensives by AMISOM, SFG, and allied Somali militia forces. However, the first video instalment included footage of the confession of an accused spy, Ahmed Kisi, which was originally broadcast in early February 2011 in a trial run of Al-Shabaab's terrestrial television station, the Al-Kataib News Channel, which stopped broadcasting after the group's withdrawal from Mogadishu in August 2011. In the footage, Kisi confessed to working for the CIA. He was later publicly executed by Al-Shabaab in the Huriwa district in northeastern Mogadishu. In a 2 February 2011 statement from Al-Shabaab, Kisi, a former member of the Somali Salafist Al-I'tisaam group that eventually became critical of Al-Shabaab, was accused of working for the CIA since 2004. Later video instalments included lengthy narrative confessions from other Somalis arrested by the Amniyyat and accused of spying for the group's enemies, including the CIA and the French intelligence services, the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE). In the third instalment, for example, a young Somali man, Muhammad Gele Abdullah, "confessed" to guiding French commando forces to the town of Buulo-Mareer in a failed attempt in January 2013 to rescue Denis Allex, who the DGSE had sent in 2009 to train Somali government forces and who was captured by Al-Shabaab in July of that year.

The purpose of the film series and other videotaped 'confessions' and written and photographic
reports from Al-Shabaab's media apparatus about alleged spies is to both warn current or potential spies working against the group and to broadcast an image to the group's enemies of an organisation that, although having suffered significant urban territorial losses, remains a both formidable and capable force, especially in terms of internal security and intelligence. Although reports and the production of written, audio, and audio-visual media focusing on spies has
increased since Spring 2011 as Al-Shabaab began to suffer major battlefield setbacks, the militant group has long been concerned about the dangers posed by domestic spies, particularly during periods of territorial upheaval.

http://www.janes.com/

Preconceived ideas, misperceptions, misunderstandings and distortions are omnipresent within this book which served as basic point of study and reference for the formation of the English colonial policy in the area of the Horn of Africa at the second half of the 19th century. As criticism, refutation and commentary will be published after the re-publication of the entire book, I welcome your comments that along with mine will highlight the destructive role and the racist nature of the English colonialism.
First footsteps in East Africa or, An Exploration of Harar
By Richard Burton
http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/b/burton/richard/b97f/index.html
Chapter II – Life in Zeyla
First published in AfroArticles, American Chronicle, and Buzzle on 20th July 2008
Republished on 23rd July 2008 here:
http://xaqsoor.blogspot.com/2008/07/northern-somalia-and-zeyla-described-by.html

The Routledge Handbook of the Horn of Africa provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary survey of contemporary research related to the Horn of Africa. Situated at the junction of the Sahel-Saharan strip and the Arabian Peninsula, the Horn of Africa is growing in global importance due to demographic growth and the strategic importance of the Suez Canal. Divided into sections on authoritarianism and resistance, religion and politics, migration, economic integration, the military, and regimes and liberation, the contributors provide up-to-date, authoritative knowledge on the region in light of contemporary strategic concerns. The handbook investigates how political, economic, and security innovations have been implemented, sometimes with violence, by use of force or by negotiation-including 'ethnic federalism' in Ethiopia, independence in Eritrea and South Sudan, integration of the traditional authorities in the (neo)patrimonial administrations, Somalian Islamic Courts, the Sudanese Islamist regime, people's movements, multilateral operations, and the construction of an architecture for regional peace and security. Accessibly written, this handbook is an essential read for scholars, students, and policy professionals interested in the contemporary politics in the Horn of Africa.

For centuries, the Horn of Africa has been at the center of global powers attention. This is mainly the result of the significant geopolitical location that the region holds. Since the dawn of the new millennium, global powers interest towards the region has immensely increased because of various phenomena’s taking place in and beyond the region. This increased interest has taken the shape of physical military presence. As a result the Horn of Africa has become one of the most militarized regions in the World. Currently in Djibouti, Eritrea and Somaliland only there are ten military bases established by nine different states with other imminent bases expected. As core part of the region, Ethiopia has a number of foreign policy interests in the region mainly in terms of security, port as well as economy. Hence, the main objective of this study is to examine the potential and actual opportunities as well as challenges that could be brought by the expansion of foreign military bases in the Horn of Africa to Ethiopia’s Foreign Policy towards the region. As the research intends to examine the impacts of expansion of military bases in the Horn of Africa to Ethiopia’s policy towards the region, the study has employed qualitative methodology and accordingly content analysis as well as key informant interviews has been used.
Accordingly the study identified that in terms of challenges in the security area, foreign powers rivalry and rising of regional tension and instability, encirclement of Ethiopia by Gulf Powers and its impact on Ethiopia’s Foreign policy orientation towards the Horn of Africa and finally the presence of Gulf powers and the threat of expansion of fundamentalism are the main threats to Ethiopia’s foreign policy interest in the region. Regarding Ethiopia’s policy of securing reliable port access, even if the threat varies from one country to another, the expansion of foreign military bases presents enormous challenge. The study also found out that the expansion of foreign military bases in the region could be challenge to the dominant role of Ethiopia in the Horn of Africa, as powerful stakeholders’ involvement increases and nations of the region dependency on stationing powers increases. In terms of opportunity, the study also identified mainly two opportunities that could be utilized by Ethiopia to achieve its policy interest in the region; the increasing rivalry of stationing powers to expand their influence and the resultant increase in their economic engagement and the presence of China and its One Belt and One Road project and finally the presence of potential as well as actual partners in the fight against terrorism would create a favorable condition to Ethiopia’s foreign policy interest in the region. However, Ethiopia’s reaction to this development in the region has been minimal if not non-existent.

A new report from Hate Speech International examines the history and evolution of al-Shabab’s media operations capabilities and narrative messaging. The report, written by Christopher Anzalone – a Research Fellow with the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs – gives particular attention to their strategic use and position within the insurgents’ broader strategy of territorial control, survival, and rule in light of shifts on the ground inside Somalia and, since 2012, increasingly in neighboring countries such as Kenya.

Also analyzed are the multiple target audiences of Al-Shabab’s multi-faceted media campaign; the importance of on-the-ground organizaiton and performance of political rituals and events as an integral part of insurgent propaganda; the growing battle between the group and Islamic State and its domestic and regional sympathizers in Somalia and East Africa; and the construction of specific media operations narratives designed to attract particular target audiences – domestic, regional and international.

Understanding the ways in which AlShabab’s sophisticated media campaign operates and identifying this multimedia output’s multiple intended audiences and its ability to advance insurgent influence and power projection are key to reaching a fuller comprehension of the successes and failures of one of the most successful insurgent movements of the 21st century.

https://www.hate-speech.org/new-report-on-al-shabab-media/

The literature on contemporary armed conflict, particularly those in the aftermath of the Cold War, tends to overlook the centrality of territory in the causation of war. However, a border incident between Eritrea and Ethiopia in 1998 led to a crisis which escalated. The war lasted two and a half years, leading to an estimated 100.000 casualties. The article's central claim shows the centrality of territory in its multiple dimensions for the understanding of the war that opposed the two sovereign states.

A busca pela pacificação da África pode ser considerada como um dos principais desafios encontrados pelos países africanos no imediato pós-independência. Em certa medida, romper com guerras civis e garantir a estabilidade continental foram se tornando algumas das principais preocupações das lideranças africanas. Reflexo disso pode ser  encontrado nas várias iniciativas propriamente africanas criadas no continente no período pós-colonial visando à estabilidade e à promoção do desenvolvimento econômico e social do continente. Nesse sentido, o presente trabalho busca compreender a evolução da Arquitetura Africana de Paz e Segurança (AAPS) desde a criação da Organização da Unidade Africana (OUA), em 1963 – primeiro mecanismo africano de segurança –, até os dias atuais, com foco na Autoridade  Intergovernamental para o Desenvolvimento (IGAD) na estabilização do Chifre da África.

Following an earlier article about the recent developments in the area of Sanaag, I came to recall a fascinating text that is not widely known among today´s Somalis. I would characterize it as a Classic of Orientalist literature, and it was written in the middle of the 19th century.

However, it was not written for the purpose of educating the ancestors of modern Somalis. In fact, it was composed by a leading English adventurer and Orientalist who contributed greatly to the formation of a great number of ideas and preconceived schemes the English shared about the wider Red Sea area, involving the Eastern African coast, the Arabian Peninsula, and the Horn of Africa.

The book is a real goldmine in revealing precisely

1. how the colonial European powers, and more specifically, the English, projected their preconceived ideas about other nations, religions, faiths, histories and cultures, their misconceptions, delusions, misapprehensions, and their misunderstandings onto the sphere of academic knowledge, science, and truth,

2. how they fell victims of their own errors,

3. how their initial errors dragged them to further and more critical, political, errors,

4. how they projected their aforementioned inconsistencies onto the sphere of the foreign policy, and more particularly onto their relationship with the various local peoples, and

5. how this unfortunate chain of discrepancies and anomalies was projected onto the Somalis to plunge them in confusion and tie them with the colonial power.

The book, in and by itself, reveals in a splendid way what colonialism has always been: a misunderstanding and an aberration built thereon.

Somalia in its totality is not the main subject of the book; a marginal part of Somalia is. However, Harar´s historical magnificence and radiance was such that anything written about Harar normally concerns parts of the greater Somalia.

Not a single chapter of the main part of the book describes the illustrious province of Sanaag; the first Appendix does. As a matter of fact, it is about a diary written and the observations made by an English army lieutenant, who was the first to identify the Lake Victoria as source of the Nile, and he was the first European to reach there. The lieutenant is not the author of the book, who also was a famous explorer, and bitter rivalry characterized the two English explorers.

The diary concerns none else than Lieutenant Speke for whom an interesting, brief but informative, profile was composed by the BBC Historic Figures section (http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/speke_john_hanning.shtml).

The book was written by Richard Burton, the famous explorer and treacherous traveler, who – due to his excellent linguistic skills in Arabic – managed to enter Mecca, although a Christian. He was the first European to enter Harar, Africa´s holiest Islamic shrine and the Islamic world´s fourth most venerated place. An introductory presentation can be found in wikipedia, but it is highly biased (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton). On the contrary, an interesting book review about his ´First footsteps in East Africa or, An Exploration of Harar´ and Burton´s adventures in Harar was published here: http://www.roadjunky.com/article/711/richard-burton-harar-travel-book.

I republish here integrally the Appendix I, Diary and Observations Made by Lieutenant Speke, When Attempting to Reach the Wadi Nogal. Richard Burton´s ´First footsteps in East Africa or, An Exploration of Harar´ was published in 1856.

I would be ready to publish various comments, and to comment on excerpts of Lieutenant Speke´s Diary, so I welcome your comments, corrections, rectifications, and criticism of this deeply anti-Somali text.

I re-publish the controversial text here because I am convinced that it reveals negative intentions against, and a wrong perception of, Somalia; the ensuing English colonization of the northern part of Somalia was carried out by people who were based …. precisely on this text!

It is therefore essential for today´s Somalis not to have illusions about the permanently anti-Somali policies of England. To liberate, pacify, re-unify, and rehabilitate Somalia, one has to bear this in mind.

Diary and Observations Made by Lieutenant Speke, When Attempting to Reach the Wadi Nogal - Appendix I
From: First footsteps in East Africa or, An Exploration of Harar
by Richard Burton
First published in AfroArticles, American Chonicle, and Buzzle on 17th July 2008
Republished on 23rd July 2008 here:
http://xaqsoor.blogspot.com/2008/07/richard-burton-on-sanaag-at-origins-of.html

For the past year and a half, al-Shabaab has continued to take advantage of the ongoing political and security turmoil between Somalia’s federal government, regional state administrations, and other powerful social groups, including the country’s clans and sub-clans and minority groups. Militarily, the jihadi-insurgent group retains significant capabilities to launch a range of attacks targeting both military and “soft” targets, including major suicide-vehicle bombings inside the most secure areas of the country such as central Mogadishu. In 2017, the group also overran a number of African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somali government military bases and forcefully reasserted itself in the northern Puntland region. Meanwhile, the Islamic State in Somalia, al-Shabaab’s main jihadi competitor, continues to lag behind it in terms of numbers, military capabilities, and media reach, though there are recent signs that the Islamic State-Somalia has been able to penetrate more deeply into the Afgooye area to the west of the capital and outside of its Puntland base.

This paper examines the challenges and opportunities of the EAC in maintaining peace and security among its member states in particular and the Region in general. A desk review of related literature was employed as an analysis method. It is found that Regional Integration has been seen in Africa as a means of encouraging trade and securing economies of scale. And it has allowed member states of regional blocs to cooperate in security matters within their jurisdictions to protect their territories, sovereignty, and interests from imminent threats. East African Community (EAC) partners have made clear efforts on security cooperation in proposals to reduce security risks, but this had not always been fruitful. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

In the face of major territorial, military, and economic setbacks, the Somali insurgent-jihadi group al-Shabaab has proven remarkably resilient thanks to pragmatic decision-making and skilled tactical maneuvering. With strong interpersonal ties and a capable internal security network, the group's senior leadership continues to maintain overall unity and to ward off a strong challenge from Islamic State sympathizers. Despite its transnational rhetoric and affiliation with al-Qà ida , al-Shabaab remains rooted in domestic Somali issues and clan politics. This domestic focus has contributed to a pragmatic battlefield strategy of classic guerilla warfare interspersed with high-profile , well-coordinated attacks on " soft targets , " such as hotels and restaurants , in the Somali capital of Mogadishu .

Somalia is perceived to be, especially by the US and Ethiopian Governments, a safe haven for various global Islamist networks. Nevertheless, at the same time, collapsed states seem to be not so much suitable for these global Islamic organizations, because of the lack of infrastructure, for example. In Somalia, there are also some local Islamic organizations, especially Islamic Courts Union (ICU) or more radical al-Shabaab. Although they have primarily local aims, some of their leaders also call for the global jihad. The paper will focus on these local Somali Islamist groups and their possible connections to global Islamic networks.

In a previous article under title 'Can Ogaden Become the Next UN Member State?' (http://www.buzzle.com/articles/can-ogaden-become-the-next-un-member-state.html), I attacked five myths that hinder the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) in their rightful struggle toward the liberation of the illegally occupied Ogaden and the inception of the Ogaden Republic.

In the present article, I will discuss an equally critical issue of the struggle of the Ogadeni people, notably the National Name of Ogaden. There have been opposite ideas, different concepts, and other appellations of the vast (280000 km1) region. I want to herewith clarify my position in this regard.

Certainly, the inhabitants of Ogaden are all Somalis, with the exception of few hundreds of administrative and military oppressors sent there from the capital of the Abyssinian empire that has illegally controlled the area following unlawful colonial arrangements that date back in the 1950s.

A Triangle Called Somalia Consequently, the land of Ogaden is an integral part of Somalia, and as such it consists in Somalia´s main inland, being surrounded by the coastal areas that shape the two sides (from Djibouti to the Horn, and from the Horn to Kenya) of the Somali Triangle.

The Greater (and only true) Somalia is in fact a triangular land. The third side, vaguely drawn from Tadjoura (Afar part of Djibouti) straight to Mombassa (Kenyan coastland), demarcates the lands of the Somalis (in the east) and the Afars and the Oromos (in the west). Because of its geographical position, Ogaden represents most the Somali West. It has therefore also been called Western Somalia.
First published in AfroArticles, American Chronicle, and Buzzle on 6th January 2010
Republished on 29 March 2014 here:
http://occupiedogaden.blogspot.com/2014/03/ogaden-western-somalia-or-ogadenia.html

The global power play in the in the IGAD region has rooted since colonial eras. The French, Britain and Italian were orchestrated in imposing their economic, military, political and even religious influence in the region. These colonial countries are

More than any other time in the history of the African Union, the past five years have witnessed discord and division between the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the states that comprise the AU. Instead of constructive dialogue, confrontation and antagonism have prevailed during the consideration of the Commission’s Activity Reports, provoking adverse decisions that erode the standards in the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Drawing in part on the author’s personal empirical observation of the dialogues before AU policy organs, the article endeavours to divulge states’ observations on the content of the Commission’s Activity Report as reflected during Ordinary Sessions of AU policy organs and to evaluate their appropriateness in light of the African regional human rights standards. It identifies that occasionally states conduct diplomacy adverse to human rights by deliberately advocating against the standards elaborated in the African Charter. Often, states use the consideration process of the Commission’s Activity Reports as a platform to control the Commission and censure its decisions rather than support it. Confrontation has been states’ favourite tactic to shield themselves from human rights accusations, reducing the impact of the Commission’s Activity Reports on domestic human rights in Africa.

Any lecture in geopolitics begins by stating that internal stability and territorial integrity of the state are the result of the interaction between secessionist, centrifugal forces, and unifying, centripetal forces. The same lecture in geopolitics also says that ethnic and confessional homogeneity falls into the category of the strongest centripetal forces, along with a round shape of the state territory, the centrality of the capital, a uniform distribution of transport and communications infrastructure, an equitable (as possible) distribution of wealth, of a strong national idea and will. Ethnically and religiously, Somalia is a homogeneous state. Moreover, all these ethnics do not boast of an identity other than Somali, and they all speak Somali-the official language of the state, along with Arabic-the language of the Koran. Somalia does not have the huge linguistic diversity specific to other post-colonial African states, there are no cultural-civilizational differences, there are no major discrepancies in terms of regional development and distribution of communications and transport infrastructure in the territory. And yet, the Somali state is the expression of the notion of a failed state, ravaged by civil war, secessionism, maritime piracy, terrorism, organized crime and insecurity. In recent years, Somalia has been consistently ranked among the most dangerous destinations in the world. In the first half of 2021, it ranked sixth in the top of the riskiest tourist destinations, after Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, South Sudan and Yemen 1. What are the causes of Somali secessionism and the collapse of the state? And, if we were to rank, according to the intensity of the effect, the secessionist factors acting on the territory of Somalia, what would be their order?

In late 2017, Turkey opened a facility to train the Somali National Army. Routinely described as a military base since, the move has caused consternation within and beyond the region and is held up as proof that a new scramble for Africa is underway. By contextualizing this new military mission within Turkey’s wider role in Somalia, this article demonstrates why the term “base” is misleading and how training the SNA is consistent with Turkey’s foreign policy aims in the country. As the SNA becomes a more powerful security actor, the article also shows how it may be (mis) used, by whom, and for what purposes, and identifies the risks this might pose for Turkey, Somalia and the wider region.

The research problem this article addresses is whether the unique confluence of overseas security forces in a single territorial space through the leasing of land for foreign military bases compromises the state's sovereignty. We study Djibouti's practice of renting land to military powers from an analytical position that is diametrically opposed to the literature on the ‘scramble’ for Africa and often erroneous assumptions of an erosion of sovereignty. Using the concept of ‘worlding’, we argue in this article that instead of reading ‘military base diplomacy’ as eroding and undermining Djibouti's sovereignty, this case demonstrates the ways in which ‘the art of being global’ underpins new forms of territoriality and unexpected forms of locality in Africa. Consequently, we maintain that African experiences of sovereignty offer the challenges, along with the rewards, of greater analytical depth to International Relations scholarship while expanding our understanding of different empirical cases beyond the western-centric accounts of sovereignty in line with an abstract ideal that does not tell us much about the world, postcolonial experiences and global politics. Through a case-study approach, we focus specifically on the stark distinctions between Japan and China, which both have their respective first postwar overseas military bases in the country, and the Djiboutian state itself, in terms of how each are interpreting and practicing sovereignty to fit their own national narrative, international status and domestic legal frameworks. The findings challenge simplistic analyses of African states as victims of exploitative Great Powers, gradually and repeatedly being stripped of their sovereignty.

The main premise of the report is that resilience to violent extremism can be linked to the strength of three kinds of relationships: between and within communities; between generations; and between citizens
and the state. The report presents evidence that the erosion of all three relationships correlates with reduced resilience. Conversely, the report argues that instances in which there is an existence of stronger relationships correlates with a reduction of risk to extremism and violence. The recommendations are therefore tailored to increase resilience through improved relationships.

Transregional conflicts – this collection of articles introduces this new analytical category for the study of a specfic group of violent conflicts in Africa while providing perspectives on possible resolutions. Ontologically, this proposed category is distinct from broader, more fuzzy terms such as “international”, “transnational”, or “global”. And epistemologically it implies a different understanding of the way in which transregional conflicts such as, for instance, the ones around the Lake Chad Basin, the Great Lakes region, or the Horn of Africa can be studied. Accordingly, this category of transregional conflicts: leaves the silos of the traditional organization of knowledge, with its division between different areas as studied through area studies (as opposed to the so-called systematic disciplines), and rather engages in cross- and transdisciplinary exercises to unpack the way how “regions” are socially constructed.

En 1991, el gobierno del dictador Mohamed Siad Barre fue derrumbado tras 22 años en el poder. A partir de ese momento, Somalia cayó en un vacío de poder, transformándose efectivamente en un estado fallido, en los términos planteados por Robert Bates: un estado sin el monopolio de la coacción fisica legitima, y en el que la competencia política toma la forma de grupos enfrentados a través de las armas (Bates, 2008). Durante las siguientes dos décadas y media, el país se repartirá entre períodos sin jefe de estado, sin jefe de gobierno, o sin ambos cargos ocupados, con trece intentos infructuosos de instalar un gobierno central hasta el año 2004, momento en el que se eligió como presidente a Abdullahi Yusuf, como parte del Gobierno Federal de Transición de la República de Somalia (GFT). Tal administración, sin apoyo territorial, vio como su territorio (excluyendo a la autoproclamada República de Somalilandia y al Estado de Puntlandia de Somalia) iba cayendo durante el año 2006 ante el avance de la Unión de Tribunales Islámicos (UTI), llegando este grupo a controlar Mogadiscio, la capital del país (Rice, 2009). Hacia finales de 2006, y gracias a la vital ayuda de Etiopía, la Unión de Tribunales Islámicos abandonó todas las ciudades que ocupaba. Sin embargo, la violencia persistió en el país, debido a que antiguos miembros de UTI, militantes islámicos de al-Shabbaab y otros movimientos yihadistas y la Alianza para la Reliberación de Somalia se unieron en una campaña insurgente

First published in the American Chronicle, Buzzle and AfroArticles on 26th April 2007
Republished:
http://www.somalitalk.com/oil/freedom.html (on the same date)
http://qilxuujaarsoo.blogspot.com.eg/2007/05/freedom-for-ogaden-wests-last-choince.html (3rd May 2007)
Ogaden was for millennia a passageway between Africa’s East coast and the Abyssinian plateau; through the Periplus of the Red Sea, a text written approximately before 1930 years by an Alexandrian Egyptian captain and merchant, we know details about the navigation alongside the African Red Sea coast, through the Bab al Mandeb straits, and further on until the Cap of Spices (Akroterion Aromaton – present day Cap Guardafui) and down to Rhapta, in the area of today’s Dar es Salam in Tanzania. Since the sailors had to arrange everything in a way to sail according to the direction of monsoons, sometimes they had to wait many long months in these faraway places; this was the main reason for the development of the trans-African caravan routes through the region of Ogaden.

W dzisiejszym świecie coraz większe znaczenie dla bezpieczeństwa państw i regionów mają zagrożenia o charakterze transnarodowym: terroryzm, zmiany klimatyczne, pandemie, czy przestępczość zorganizowana. Według liberałów zajmujących się bezpieczeństwem, ekonomiczne bądź inne niż jedynie polityczne czy militarne formy współzależności (ang. interdependence) 1 i współistnienia zarówno między aktorami państwowymi, jak i niepaństwowymi mają łagodzący skutek na zachowanie państwa. Kluczem dla zrozumienia stosunków międzynarodowych są zaś relacje państwo-społeczeństwo, toteż i spektrum badań nad międzynarodową polityką jest o wiele szersze i nie ogranicza się jedynie do kwestii militarnych i bezpieczeństwa, jak chcieliby niektórzy realiści 2 . Ostatecznym celem państw powinien być dobrobyt i pomyślność społeczeństwa, stąd nacisk kładziony na kwestie gospodarcze i społeczne. Niemniej jednak, w związku z tym, iż wojna postrzegana jest jako "nieekonomiczna", kwestie bezpieczeństwa również pojawiają się w nurcie liberalnym stosunków międzynarodowych, wystarczy choćby wspomnieć teorię demokratycznego pokoju czy teorię bezpieczeństwa zbiorowego 3 . Wykorzystanie w niniejszym artykule teorii regionalnych kompleksów bezpieczeństwa i proponowanych przez nią poziomów analizy do analizy porównawczej wpływu polityki Dżibuti i Erytrei na bezpieczeństwo w regionie Rogu Afryki nie nawiązuje bezpośrednio do klasycznych teorii liberalnych w stosunkach międzynarodowych. Niemniej jednak przyczynia się do lepszego zrozumienia ewolucji regionalnego systemu bezpieczeństwa w Afryce (ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem przykładu Rogu Afryki) w świetle założeń liberalnego paradygmatu. Warto przy tym wspomnieć, iż w badaniach afrykanistycznych z pogranicza stosunków międzynarodowych i nauk o bezpieczeństwie brak jest często adekwatnych podejść Dżibuti i Erytrea a bezpieczeństwo regionu Rogu Afryki w świetle regionalnych kompleksów bezpieczeństwa JOANNA MORMUL Projekt został sfinansowany ześrodków Narodowego Centrum Nauki przyznanych na podstawie decyzji numerDEC-2012/07/B/HS5/03948. Dżibuti i Erytrea a bezpieczeństwo...