Punishing the periphery: legacies of state repression in the Ethiopian Ogaden

Abstract

This article scrutinizes dynamics and legacies of state violence by the imperial and current government against civilians in the Ethiopian Ogaden, between 1960 and 2010. While conflict dynamics in eastern Ethiopia underwent significant changes in the past half-century, successive counterinsurgency campaigns employed strikingly similar military tactics against local communities. Combining historical accounts with oral testimonies collected among victims of state violence in the Ogaadeen Somali diaspora in the USA, this article draws attention to the distinct temporality and spatiality that emerges from repeat cycles of state violence.

Keywords:

• counterinsurgency
• armed conflict
• ethnonationalism
• trauma
• Ogaden
• Ethiopia

Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges financial support from the German Peace Research Foundation (DSF) under the project “Transitional Justice in Protracted Conflict: Local and Diaspora Conceptions of Retributive and Restorative Justice in Somalia and Ethiopia's Somali Region,” research assistance by Hamse Warfa, Abdiasiis Ali, Horsed Ayni, and Abdirahman Kahin during interviews conducted with members of the Ogaadeen Somali diaspora in southern California and Minnesota in April and June 2012, and all informants who shared their often painful recollections of the past. David M. Anderson, Richard Reid, Øystein H. Rolandsen, and an anonymous reviewer provided helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

1. Donham and James, Southern Marches, 3–48; Markakis, Ethiopia, 131–60.

2. Abbink, “Dervishes, ‘Moryaan’ and Freedom Fighters,” 328–65.

3. Garretson, “Ethiopian Expansion into the Ogaadeen,” 5–19; Geshekter, “Anti-colonialism and Class Formation,” 7 ff.

4. Tibebe Eshete, “Towards a History of the Incorporation of the Ogaden,” 75–6.

5. Hagmann and Korf, “Agamben in the Ogaden,” 208–9.

6. Barnes, “The Ethiopian State and Its Somali Periphery,” 93–166; Hagmann, “Beyond Clannishness and Colonialism,” 509–36; Korf, Hagmann, and Emmenegger, “Territorialization, Sedentarization and Indigenous Commodification.”

7. Clapham, “Rewriting Ethiopian History,” 37–54; Toggia, “History Writing,” 319–43.

8. Vaughan and Tronvoll, The Culture of Power, 32–5; Abbink, “Discomfiture of Democracy?” 173–99 and “Political Culture in Ethiopia”.

9. Hagmann and Korf, “Agamben in the Ogaden,” 205–14; Scott, Seeing Like a State, 247–52; Toggia, “The State of Emergency,” 107–24.

10. Clapham, “Space in Ethiopia,” 14–23; Donham, “A Note on Space,” 585–7; Hagmann and Abbink, “Twenty Years,” 583–6.

11. Hagmann and Korf, “Agamben in the Ogaden,” 205–14.

12. I am indebted to Richard Reid for this observation.

13. Except for, Barnes, “The Ethiopian State and Its Somali Periphery.”

14. Gebru Tareke, “The Ethiopia-Somalia War,” 635–67; Gebru Tareke, “From Lash to Red Star,” 465–98.

15. But see Barnes, “The Somali Youth League,” 282–8, on the Jijiga revolt; Markakis, National and Class Conflict, 169–81 and 225–34, on rebellions in the 1960s and the WSLF in the 1970s; Africa Watch, Evil Days, 74–80, on the ‘secret wars’ in eastern Ethiopia in the 1980s; Hagmann, Talking Peace in the Ogaden, 21–47; Markakis, Ethiopia, 306–23 on the ONLF insurgency.

16. See Barnes, “The Ethiopian State and Its Somali Periphery”; Lewis, Modern History; Touval, Somali Nationalism.

17. For example, Matthies, Der Grenzkonflikt Somalias mit Äthiopien und Kenya, 205–8, who writes about ‘border conflicts’ between Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.

18. Abdullahi and Barnes, “Genealogies of Somali Islamic Politics,” 5; Markakis, National and Class Conflict, 177–81.

19. Interview with former al-jaysh and WSLF fighter from Degehabur, San Jose, June 4, 2012.

20. Hagmann, Talking Peace in the Ogaden, 52–4.

21. Markakis, National and Class Conflict, 175–6; Seid, The Role of Religion.

22. Author's interviews among Ogaadeen Somali diaspora, southern California and Minnesota, April and June 2012.

23. Hagmann, “Beyond Clannishness and Colonialism,” 515–24.

24. HRW, “Ethiopia: ‘Special Police’ Execute 10.”

25. Hagmann, Talking Peace in the Ogaden, 26–7.

26. For example, http://somalilandpress.com/ethiopia-ogaden-youth-of-oysu-unveils-the-hidden-genocide-that-the-world-turned-a-blind-eye-47004 (accessed May 26, 2014).

27. Barnes, “The Somali Youth League,” 277–91, Markakis, National and Class Conflict, 173–6, Tibebe Eshete, “Root Causes,” 10–20.

28. Abdullahi and Barnes, “Genealogies of Somali Islamic Politics,” 3; Schröder, Von Äthiopisch-Somaliland zum Somalistaat Äthiopiens, 33, identifies Osmal Hassan ‘Gab’, Abdi Nasser, Siad Haj Mehamed, Ahmed Nur Hussein and Sherif Mehamed as Nasrallah founders. Its first president was Dr. Ibrahim Hashi from Wardheer. Main OCTI representatives were Abdi Ali Agole (Degehabur), Yusuf Ahmed Gas (Qabridehar), Sheikh Ahmed Mahmud (Kelafo) and Abdi Nasser Sheikh Aden (Wardheer). In 1958, the OCTI was centralized and established its seat in Kelafo under the leadership of, first, Sheikh Ahmed Mahmud and later on, Yusuf Ahmed Gas.

29. Markakis, National and Class Conflict, 175–81, provides the only published account of the origin of the al-jaysh.

30. Barnes, “The Somali Youth League,” 284–5; ‘Somali Guerilla Chief Says he'll Ignore a Truce’, New York Times, March 23, 1964; Interview, daughter of Makthal Dahir, Minneapolis, June 19, 2012.

31. Markakis, National and Class Conflict, 178.

32. Key al-jaysh leaders were Adan Handel (Shilabo), Mohamed Heybe (Qabridehar), Adan Aziz (Fiq), Makthal Dahir (Degehabur), Majerteen Ugas aka Ugas Majerteen (Imi). Interview with former al-jaysh and WSLF fighter from Degehabur, San Jose, June 4, 2012.

33. Abdullahi and Barnes, “Genealogies of Somali Islamic Politics,” 4–5.

34. Markakis, National and Class Conflict, 179.

35. Interview, elder from Qabridehar, San Diego, March 31, 2012.

36. Interview, survivor Degehabur ,kanone massacre‘, San Diego, March 30, 2012.

37. Interview with former al-jaysh and WSLF fighter from Degehabur, San Jose, June 4, 2012.

38. Interview, survivor and eyewitness of Shilabo fighting, San Diego, April 1, 2012.

39. Interview, elder from Qabridehar, San Diego, April 2, 2012.

40. Interview, elder from Duhun, San Diego, April 2, 2012.

41. Interview, elder from Qabridehar, San Diego, April 2, 2012.

42. Markakis, National and Class Conflict, 179; Interview with former al-jaysh and WSLF fighter from Degehabur, San Jose, June 4, 2012.

43. Markakis, National and Class Conflict, 179–80.

44. Matthies, Der Grenzkonflikt Somalias mit Äthiopien und Kenya, 141 ff.

45. The ONLF's Somali name is Jabhada Wadaniga Xoreynta Ogadeenya (JWXO).

46. Markakis, “The Somali in the New Political Order,” 71–9.

47. Samatar, “Ethiopian Federalism,” 1136–45; Hagmann and Khalif, “State and Politics,” 27–31.

48. Hagmann, “Beyond Clannishness and Colonialism,” 522; Hagmann, Talking Peace in the Ogaden, 31–33.

49. Hagmann and Khalif, “State and Politics,” 27–31.

50. Hagmann, Talking Peace in the Ogaden, 54–64.

51. “In Ethiopia, Fear and Cries of Army Brutality,” New York Times, June 18, 2007.

52. HRW, Collective Punishment. The report drew on over 70 interviews with victims and eyewitnesses and features satellite images of villages burnt by ENDF troops.

53. “A Row over Human Rights,” Economist, February 5, 2009.

54. “Ethiopians Said to Push Civilians into Rebel War,” New York Times, December 15, 2007; HRW, Collective Punishment; IRIN, “Ethiopia: IRIN Special Report on the Ogaden,” May 11, 2000; OHRC, “Human Rights Violations”; OHRC, “Ogaden: An Endless Human Tragedy”; OHRC, “Ogaden: Graveyard of Rights”; OHRC, “Mass Killings in the Ogaden” and OHRC, “Ogaden: Ethiopian Government Forces.” Interviews by the author with various exiled witnesses and victims between 2008 and 2012.

55. Interview, former prisoner and torture victim from Qabridehar, San Diego, April 1, 2012.

56. “Ethiopians Said to Push Civilians into Rebel War,” New York Times, December 15, 2007.

57. OHRC, “Ogaden: Ethiopian Government Forces,” 7.

58. Compilation of claimed casualty figures by the author, see Hagmann, Talking Peace in the Ogaden, 27–8.

59. Interview, survivor and eyewitness of Shilabo fighting, San Diego, April 1, 2012.

60. Interview with ONLF official, June 17, 2012, Minneapolis.

61. Interview, survivor Degehabur ,kanone massacre‘, San Diego, March 30, 2012.

62. Interview, elderly woman from Aware, Minneapolis, June 17, 2012.

63. Interview, survivor of Labiga massacre, Minneapolis, June 19, 2012.

64. Interview, intellectual, San Diego, March 30, 2012.

65. Interview, laborer born in Godey, Minneapolis, June 20, 2012.

66. Hagmann, Talking Peace in the Ogaden, 24–6.

67. ‘Mapping the Invisible Somali Twin Cities’, University of St. Thomas, November 7, 2012, http://www.stthomas.edu/news/fartun-dirie/ (accessed August 8, 2013).

68. Interview, woman from Qabridehar, San Diego, April 1, 2012.

69. Interview, labourer from Godey, Minneapolis, June 20, 2012.

70. Assmann, “Collective Memory and Cultural Identity.”

71. Reid, “War and Remembrance.”

72. Markakis, Ethiopia, 354–9.