The Indian Ocean was always an ocean of communication, trade and human activity from times immemorial. It connected Africa to Asia and further to the Mediterranean and hence Europe, through the Horn of Africa States region, making it a geo-strategic location and hence attracting many extra-regional powers. It was, indeed, a conduit of a large trade network connecting distant China, West Asia, South Asia, Southern Europe and far south and deep into Africa.
It still connects those regions and much more, which makes it ever more important and the center of competition among the powers that be in the world. Peace, therefore, remains, in the region, a rare and precious commodity, as disturbances inflicted by one or the other of the competitors remains a constant factor in the life systems of the region.
All the countries of the region, therefore, remain constantly under the mercy of one or the other of those malevolent forces that come to the region for their own interests, irrespective of the malaises they cause in the region. These competitions have also led to the unstable regimes or no governance in certain instances and authoritarian regimes in others in the region. A poor person or a poor region and/or country does not really have much of a choice or chance in the cut-throat competitions among those powers of the world of today.
These forces maintain significant security apparatuses in the region involving naval and aerial surveillance capabilities. This is because the region always was and still is a conduit for a substantial flow of goods and services including spiritual transfers of humongous proportions across its various spaces.
A look back into the history of the region brings to light certain similarities to the middle ages when there was, not only Turkish presence in the region, but Europeans as well and Indians and Chinese. The European element is now currently under an American leadership involving a competition for the resources of the region. Today all these forces are present in the region.
Both the Chinese and the Indians have shown growing presence in the region and in particular in the many islands not distant from the Horn of Africa such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, the Seychelles, the Comoros, Mauritius, and others. The Russians who had presence in the region for a long period before are also involved in the affairs of the region, but this time, both directly and indrectly through an undefined amalgam with the Arabs, and in particular with some of the Gulf countries.
The Arabs with their new found wealth seem to be undecided where they stand in this mix of multiple parties and seem to be trying to find a new place for themselves. In the recent past they were mostly on the West camp. Their current involvement with the BRICS Plus points to a new direction the Gulf States are testing.
The Horn of Africa States region which consists of the SEED countries (Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti) or the SEEDS at times including Sudan, is a region where the countries were at war for a long time, either within each state or with other states in the region. It is a region which should have no reasons for fighting but which nevertheless is at war. It is a region populated by generally the same people, almost divided between highlands and lowlands, which should all have been cooperating where resources and bounties of the region could be shared.
It has resources which can sustain not only its present population of some two hundred million including Sudan and many more millions into the future. The region is a roof or a water tower from which rivers flow in all directions but mostly to the north in the form of the Blue Nile which brings together many other rivers and streams following north. Some flow to the south while others flow to the southeast to join the Indian Ocean. Very few run northeast and end up in marshes or depressions before they reach the sea.
The world population clock points to some 8.2 billion in the world today and this is on the rise and the clock is still ticking. They all have to be fed, clothed and sheltered. It is the unfortunate story of humanity for the strong trample on the weak and the poor and take their wealth from them. The Horn of Africa States region is one such poor region which many covet and where even its geo-strategic location becomes a disturbing factor of its peace, let alone its other resources including potentially a large hydrocarbon reserve base, a vast maritime resource base and an equally huge agricultural potential.
This explains, in addition to being the conduit of international trade flows, why there is presence of huge security forces of many in the region. However, one must note that despite the rising Indian and Chinese presence in the region, the United States is the only power capable of increasing its presence massively and sustainably at a moment’s notice.
The Horn Africans, despite being a significant population and occupying a sizeable real estate overlooking an equally large maritime space in that geo-strategically located corner of earth, all seem to have been made busy with themselves in the place of coalescing together. They are constantly at war with each other, either through intra-state nonsensical conflicts engineered from outside the region or through inter-state civil wars within each country, where siblings are at war against their own cousins for tribal/clan pride on who could be in the driving seat and misappropriating the meagre economic means through corrupt systems.
An individually based electoral system of contestants of who could do a better job in managing the affairs of the people could have settled issues as is the case in mature societies. The region is as old as humanity and it should have come up by now some kind of modus operandi on how to live with each other in peace by themselves instead of listening to fake and false advice of others who have no interest in the wellbeing of the region.
It is strange how the owners of the region are relegated to being guests in the affairs of their own countries and region, almost peripheral. Some regional powers are competing over the region in addition to the major powers. They include among others Egypt, Israel, Türkiye, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and others. The Horn African States region, indeed, seems to be competing on who could get uno poco di dolari from these regional powers instead of themselves organizing their own turf into a formidable force on the western shores of the Indian Ocean and of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, as they used to be in the past. They should have been working on the Somali Beden reformed and developed to meet modern amenities sailing again across the seas and ocean of the region. The region could have turned its geo-strategic location to its advantage.
Institutions like IGAD or the Eastern Africa Standby Force (EASF) or even the East Africa Community (EAC) appear to have disrupted the formation of a Horn African regional block. All the institutions so far created seem to address matters that do not directly benefit the region but, indeed, others. It would appear that the Horn African is denied his fundamental right to organize himself in his own turf and must plug on to others. All the current institutions of the region serve other non-Horn African countries as far as the DR Congo, which does not really make sense other than being in the African continent together.
A Horn African regional block would have made progress in the assurance of peace and contributed to the stability of the region in addition to the easing of the normal flow of trade of goods and services. It would have helped development of an organized transportation system linking every part of the region to the other parts and would have allowed movement of people from one part of the region to another. Such a regional block would, indeed, have helped direct the energies and resources of the region towards development, education, better health services and better lives and not towards wars and the weapons of death, using the youthful population of the region as fodder for fire.
This would have led to the development of transportation hubs in the form of seaports and airports and it would have led to development of both industries in the region i.e. shipping and air taransportation. Once again, the region would have become a seafaring region as it was millennia ago, when many moved out of the African continent onto India and settled in that subcontinent or to Arabia and further east.
The Horn of Africa States region should, indeed, be a goal of the region, and it should be different from the many current regional blocks in Africa whose resources are generally provided by others beyond their supposed regions. Such a regional block administration should be financed from the government budgets of the countries of the region.