Countries of the World/COUNTRYS.BIN/dp/0328/03285.txt

Text File | 1991-06-25 | 28KB | 443 lines

$Unique_ID{COW03285}
$Pretitle{286}
$Title{Somalia
Chapter 1B.   The Colonial Period}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Robert Rinehart}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{italian
british
somali
ethiopia
colonial
somalis
mohamed
somaliland
abdullah
government}
$Date{1981}
$Log{Figure 3.*0328501.scf
Mohamed Abdullah*0328503.scf
}
Country:     Somalia
Book:        Somalia, A Country Study
Author:      Robert Rinehart
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1981

Chapter 1B.   The Colonial Period

     In the second half of the nineteenth century, several countries vied for
control of Somali-populated territories, encountering little opposition from
the Somalis. The contending powers were not only European but included Egypt
(at that time an autonomous Ottoman province) and the independent African
kingdom of Ethiopia. The division of territory was carried out by local
representatives of the colonial powers rather than over negotiating tables in
Europe. The process by which boundaries were delimited contributed directly to
the irredentism that became a significant political issue for the Somalis in
the postcolonial period.

     In 1865 the Ottoman sultan issued a decree ceding port towns on the
western shore of the Red Sea to the khedive of Egypt, who was nominally his
subject. The khedive cited the grant as pretext for assuming Ottoman claims to
jurisdiction in the Horn of Africa. By 1874 Egypt had occupied towns on the
Somali north coast, but Britain blocked additional Egyptian efforts to
establish the khedive's authority in Baraawe on the Benadir Coast, which was
loosely administered by Zanzibar. During a ten-year presence in Berbera,
Seylac, and smaller northern coastal towns, the Egyptians improved port
facilities, built mosques, and introduced limited control over the
hinterlands by utilizing Somali clan headmen nominated by the khedive.
Determined Egyptian attempts to expand inland with tough Ethiopian
resistance, but their troops succeeded in taking Harer. The Mahdist rebellion
in Sudan compelled the khedive to recall his forces in 1883, however, and to
abandon Egyptian holdings in the Horn. The Ethiopians occupied Harer the next
year.

     Britain's initial interest in the Somali coast was logistical. After the
British annexation of Aden in 1840, treaties were entered into with two Somali
sultanates to ensure an uninterrupted supply of cattle to feed the garrison
there. Richard Burton's expedition to Harer in 1854, which attracted British
attention to the region, was the first visit by a European explorer to the
interior. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 made more apparent the
strategic importance of the coastal towns, and vice consuls were assigned to
Berbera, Seylac, and Bulhar to protect British interests. In 1884, following
the Egyptian departure, a resident political agent was appointed, and further
treaties were concluded with the clans, leading to the establishment of the
Somali Coast Protectorate (subsequently British Somaliland Protectorate)
administered by the India Office in London. Under the treaties, protected
clans allowed Britain to represent their interests in return for a subsidy
paid by the British government. But as the name of the new dependency
indicated, colonial authorities made no specific claims to jurisdiction in the
interior. In 1898 responsibility for administering the protectorate was
transferred to the Foreign Office, operating through a consul general, and in
1907 to the Colonial Office.

     In 1859 France had obtained a treaty with the Afar people for rights to
the small port of Obock, north of present-day Djibouti, but had used the area
only as a trading station. Anglo-French rivalry along the route to India in
the 1880s led the British to close the port of Aden to French shipping. As a
result in 1883 the French began to develop a coaling station at Djibouti.

     The Italians entered the colonial race quite late and became interested
in the Horn as one of the few parts of the continent not already claimed by a
major power. The port of Aseb in Eritrea had been purchased by an Italian
shipping firm for a coaling station in 1870. Ownership passed to the Italian
government in 1882, and in 1885, with the agreement of the British, the
Italians took over Mitsiwa from the departing Egyptians, simultaneuosly laying
claim to the entire Eritrean coast. In 1889 Italy and the new Ethiopian
emperor, Menelik II, agreed to the Treaty of Ucciali. According to a
unilateral Italian interpretation of its provisions, the treaty made Ethiopia
a protectorate within the Italian sphere of influence and authorized Italy to
act on Ethiopia's behalf in dealing with Britain and France on boder
questions.

     The Italian entry into Somalia proper started in 1889, when the Somali
sultans of Hobyo (Obbia) on the coast of the Indian Ocean and of Caluula
(Alula), facing the Gulf of Aden, began to accept annual payments from Italy
in exchange for protectorate status. That same year Italy obtained rights to
the Benadir Coast, partly by direct twenty-five-year lease from the sultan of
Zanzibar and partly by sublease from the Imperial British East Africa Company,
which had earlier leased territory from the region's nominal ruler. The leases
covered the area from Warshiikh (Uarsciech) southward to the mouth of the
Juba River and included Mogadishu, Marka, and Baraawe. The Italian government
chartered a commercial firm, the Filonardi Company, as its representative to
administer and develop the leasehold. Agents of the company expanded the area
under Italian control, signing treaties with local clans in return, in some
cases, for armed protection against the Ethiopians.

Division of Somali-Occupied Territory

     Without consulting Ethiopia, Britain and Italy agreed to treaties in 1891
and 1894 that defined the boundaries between their respective zones of
influence. The inland boundaries divided the territories claimed by Ethiopia
by placing the Ogaden region in the Italian sphere and the Haud region in the
British sphere (see fig. 3).

     In 1896 Italian forces invading Ethiopia from Eritrea to enforce Italy's
claim to a protectorate were resoundingly defeated by Menelik's army at the
battle of Adowa. Despite the resulting opposition in Italy to colonial
ventures and the financial collapse of the Filonardi Company, the military
disaster did not weaken Italy's position in Somalia. But it did make necessary
a redefinition of the interior boundaries between the European-held
territories and Ethiopia.

     Arrangements for delimination began in 1897 when a British negotiator,
Rennell Rodd, led a special mission to Menelik, the main purpose of which was
to ensure Ethiopian neutrality in the British campaign against the Mahdists
in Sudan. The Ethiopian position was strengthened by the fact that Ethiopia
had already claimed suzerainty over the whole of Somalia and had rapidly
expanded its control over Somali-populated areas. A strong Ethiopian garrison
had been established at Harer, just beyond the border tentatively claimed by
Britain in its role as protector of Somali clans inhabiting the area.
Furthermore Ethiopia had recently obtained territorial concessions from
Britain's colonial rivals, the Italians in Eritrea and the French in Djibouti,
the latter having voluntarily withdrawn their claimed boundaries by 100
kilometers. These factors, combined with the British government's lack of
enthusiasm for extending its commitments in the Horn of Africa, placed Rodd in
a poor bargaining position.

[See Figure 3.: Frontiers and Colonial Boundaries, 1891-1960 Source: Adapted
from Irving Kaplan, et. al., Area Handbook for Somalia, Washington, 1977, p.
22.]

     Britain's only claims in the interior were based on the treaties signed
with Somali clans whose primary motivation for signing had been to obtain
protection against the better armed Ethiopians. Nevertheless the British
agreed to pull back the protectorate's boundaries by about eleven kilometers
opposite Harer and to conc