The political situation in the Horn of Africa is in constant ebb and flow. Events tend to change very quickly. Peace and stability is delicate while internal conflicts in the region, from South Sudan to Ethiopia seem to show that lasting peace is still elusive. The year 2019 has witnessed dramatic developments in this part of Africa. It has seen the best and the worst of its politics.
The war clouds that have been hanging over the heads of Ethiopia and Eritrea are now cleared although the process is not sealed with a solid agreement. South Sudan is seesawing between normality and a possible return to violence as the establishment of a unity government in the country is hanging in the balance. Al Shabab in Somalia is militarily weakened but not defeated. It is still capable of staging dramatic terrorist attacks although the military balance is in favor of the central government and the AMISOM forces.
Relations between Horn countries sometimes prove bumpy as the recent dispute between Somalia and Kenya over the Indian Ocean sea cost where oil is discovered under the seabed had long given birth to claims and counter claims between the two neighboring countries. Oil explorations have already proved that the place is rich in resources claimed both by Somalia and Kenya and this has led to disputes that are not yet resolved. Both countries claim ownership of the oil-rich offshore areas while recent mediation efforts by Ethiopia have been disregarded by the two sides in their desperate search for exclusive ownership of the disputed area.
Some analysts believe that the root of the present Somali-Kenyan dispute lies in the colonial period. Christopher R. Rossi, University of Iowa, wrote in March 2019 that, “The borderlines separating Kenya and Somalia were first drawn in the late 19th century. Like everywhere else on the continent, this was the work of cartographers working for European colonial powers. Across the continent they replaced porous spaces in which people engaged openly across culture, language, religion, kinship, and ethnicity with straight-line geometrics.”
According to another writer on the topic, Patrick Muthengi Maluki who is Senior Lecturer, at the Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies, University of Nairobi, “Diplomatic relations between the two countries have been on a steep decline since early 2019, when Kenya accused Somalia of putting Kenya’s blocks up for auction during the February Somalia Oil and Gas conference in London.” The author went on to say that, “Following the London oil conference, Kenya recalled its ambassador to Somalia and asked the Somali ambassador in Kenya to “depart for consultations.”
Until very recently, Somalia was not in a position to claim the oil resources in the offshore of Indian Ocean as it was bogged down in a long civil war that led to a failed state where authority shifted between Islamists and secular political forces in the capital Mogadishu. As an elected authority is set up in the capital and the tide is turning in favor of normalization , with AMISOM support in which Kenya is a part, claims over offshore oil resources intervened to make relations between the two countries go sour.
The author we quoted above says that Meanwhile, Somalia has a case against Kenya at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). In 2014, Somalia sued Kenya at the ICJ and asked the court to order a redrawing of the sea boundary in Somalia’s favor. The hearings were scheduled to start on September 3, 2019 but Kenya successfully petitioned the court to adjourn the case until June 2020.
African countries are endowed with many natural resources but also suffer from what is known in African economic literature as the “resource curse” that has undermined peace and led to dispute over ownership of these resources. Disputes over resources have often led to internal political conflicts and fueled civil wars in places like Sierra Leone and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), among others. However disputes over territory rather than resources have rarely led to cross-border conflicts between neighboring African countries as they are doing now in case of the Somali-Kenyan quarrel.
What seems to have angered Nairobi is apparently was Somalia’s attempt to seek mediation through ICJ while in the opinion of Kenyan authorities the dispute could be addressed through regional organizations like IGAD or the African Union. A few months back, Ethiopian PM Abiye Ahmed had tried to bring the two countries closer together in his bid to find a solution to the dispute through his regional shuttle diplomacy that was one factor in his recent winning of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. the recent flare up in the row over the oil resources.
Another factor that is exacerbating the situation is the ill-defined colonial time border demarcations between African countries that have already led to instances of territorial disputes wherever natural resources are found in abundance. The current dispute between Kenya and Somalia can be regarded as one instance among others where the discovery of important oil deposits tends to lead to rekindle old hostilities.
Intervention by big powers is thus a factor that is feeding the dispute and the hardening of positions on both sides. Some analysts believe that “As the dispute has escalated these powers have taken different sides. The UK, for example, has shown support for Somalia. This is for two reasons. One, UK-Kenya relations have not been the best since the election of Uhuru Kenyatta who became president while a suspect at the International Criminal Court. He faced charges for crimes against humanity for his alleged role in Kenya’s 2007 post-election violence. The charges have since been dropped.
Under president Kenyatta, the Kenya government has gravitated towards American, Chinese and other interests as compared to British interests. As a result, the UK has moved to consolidate its economic interests in the region through Somalia. Britain has a longer relationship with Somalia in terms of onshore and offshore oil explorations. For instance, British Petroleum (BP) had oil exploration concessions in Somalia from the 1980s until 1991 when Somalia plunged into violence after the ousting of president Siad Barre.
Ethiopia has tried to mediate between the two parties in order to settle the dispute. The Ethiopian premier earlier this year met with Somalia’s president on Tuesday to discuss regional security in Addis Ababa. “The two sides have dwelt at length on bettering relations between Somalia and Kenya,” a local broadcaster reported on the meeting between Abiy Ahmed and Mohammed Abdullahi Mohammed (Formajo).
Addis Ababa had underlined that its diplomatic efforts were conducted under efforts spearheaded by the Ethiopian prime minister to achieve economic integration on the continent. the Ethiopian premier could not mediate during the recent crisis and flare up of the dispute due to his busy schedule that kept him at home dealing with important political, security and economic issues in Ethiopia.
Some analysts and Horn watchers believe that “the dispute between Kenya and Somalia is a crisis in the waiting, the situation is far from being hopeless. Somalia, however, still wants the ICJ to define the boundary as laid down by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and other international sea laws.
In June this year, Kenya wrote a protest letter to the United Nations saying the matter should be settled through mechanisms available under the African Union including through the Intergovernmental Authority for Development (IGAD) and East African Community (EAC) organizations. Kenya says the decision to take the matter to ICJ would hamper co-operation between the two nations in fighting piracy in Kenya’s waters and the fight against the Al-Shabaab within the region.”
A just settlement is likely to materialize soon as the two sides have recently agreed to normalize diplomatic relations . The rapprochement will start with restoration of the issuance of travel visas on arrival for citizens of the two East African nations. The Kenyan press wrote that, “The two leaders agreed to explore avenues of strengthening bilateral and diplomatic ties between Nairobi and Mogadishu for the benefit of the citizens of the two nations,” a statement issued by President Kenyatta’s office said.
Ethiopia’s continued mediation efforts is obviously important to settle the matter in the interest of regional solidarity, and cooperation against the terrorist Al Shabab. Ethiopia’s mediation is also important for another reason. Ethiopia is by far the fairest partner as she maintains equal distance between Mogadishu and Nairobi and is seriously committed to remove any hurdle that might hamper regional economic cooperation that is more important than anything else.
The task ahead would be to persuade Somalia bring the issue to African Union attention and drop the ICJ case while Kenya should be persuaded to accept any ruling by an African body. Who will effectively perform this diplomatic juggling, other than Ethiopia that has plenty of experience in untying similar diplomatic knots in the past.
The Ethiopian Herald Sunday Edition 24 November 2019
BY MULUGETA GUDETA
