Djibouti: A Political History

Abebe Bezabeh has written a thoughtful political history of a much-neglected country. Djibouti gained independence from France in 1977. It sits squeezed between Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia with a population of just over one million people. The country is mentioned in the press because of its strategic location between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden and because it hosts French, American, and now Chinese military bases. Its domestic politics, including the legacy of a long civil war in the 1990s, receives far less attention. This book is sharply critical of Djibouti’s post-independence record. Two strongmen have dominated national politics, deploying a mixture of repression and clientelism to remain in power. President Ismail Omar Guelleh is now in his fifth term. The country’s politics is shaped by the conflict between the majority Issa ethnic group and the smaller Afar. Abebe Bezabeh argues that the regime has always sought to co-opt different ethnic elites to manage the conflict, and the peace deal that ended the civil war included some formal ethnic power sharing; the result, he suggests, is a system that enthrones its elites and does not respond to the needs of average citizens.