From Financial Journalist!Both the Somali and Ethiopian governments have signed an agreement which is expected to have far-reaching effects on the rebel stuggle in both countries. The negotiations for the April agreement were concluded under the cover of a two-day summit of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Drought and Development in Djibouti in late March. A secret meeting between the Ethiopian president Mengistu Haile Mariam and Somali’s president, Mohammed Siyad Barre, took place for two hours on 21 March to try and conclude sporadic peace talks which have been going on for several months in an effort to solve a decade old border dispute.
In essence, the agreement sets up a military commission to supervise the withdrawal of all troops from within nine miles of the disputed border in the Ogaden region. It also restores official diplomatic relations between the two states for the first time in over ten years, As a gesture of goodwill, Ethiopia has also handed back the border towns of Goldogob and Ballanballe that they have occupied since 1982 following a border skirmish. More important for both sides is the acceptance that neither state will interfere in the other country’s internal politics. It is this provision that enables both sides to perceive solid gains.
Following the 1977-78 Ogaden war, when Somali troops invaded the disputed Ethiopian territory of mainly Somali-speaking Ogaden, the Ethiopians became involved with supporting rebels in Somalia’s northern territories. When independence came in 1960, the northern British colony joined the southern Italian territory to create the state of Somalia. With the 1969 military coup of Siyad Barre, who introduced a one party socialism, the north began to feel ignored, both economically and politically. The discontent led to the rise of the Somali Nationalist Movement (SNM) which has been involved in an armed, albeit limited, struggle against Barre’s government.
After the Ethiopian army, with massive military aid from both the Soviet Union and Cuba, repulsed the Somali attack in 1978, it began supporting the SNM. Apart from moral and military support, the Ethiopians also gave the SNM access to radio transmitters in Addis Ababa.
Under the new agreement Ethiopia will stop all assistance to the SNM, leaving them without a safe base of operations. For the Somali government, it means the strong-arm policies of General Mohammed Hersi, who operates in the north and holds the northern capital of Hargeisa under his control, are more likely to succeed than hitherto. It also means that some of the Somali army can be redeployed from the Ogaden border to the north.
For the Ethiopians there are similar advantages. The Somali government has supported the Western Somali Liberation Front, which operates in the Ogaden and will now be forced to cut its links. But most important for the Ethiopians is the fact that the agreement frees many of its divisions stationed in the south and the east to go to the warfronts in Eritrea and Tigray. Apart from the military necessity to release troops, following the massive defeats on the Nacfa front by the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front, when over 10,000 Ethiopian soldiers were killed and the strategic town of Afabet was captured, it also has economic implications. Half of the country’s national budget is spent on these wars and for the first time early this year the Ethiopian foreign minister, Berhanu Bayeh, admitted that the Eritrean conflict was bleeding the nation to death. It has also has become apparent that Soviet support for the Mengistu regime is weakening. Soviet diplomats have told their peers in Addis Ababa that they are becoming increasingly frustrated with the unwinnable war in the north. The Soviet sea base on the Dalak Islands remains undeveloped and there are indications that the Soviets want less and less to do with Mengistu. As a result of the April agreement, the Ethiopians have already transferred nearly 90,000 troops to the north according to the EPLF, including some mechanised brigades.
While both sides must be relieved to have some sort of peace enabling them to tackle their own internal problems more effectively, there are whispers of dissent in Somalia. Major General Adan Abullahi Nur, the Somali minister of defence, expressed dissatisfaction with the agreement in private, saying that he believes that Barre has accepted the present Ogaden border and has sold out the interests of the Somali speaking people in the region.
