Landlocked countries have their existence rooted in the notion of the nation states, which was mostly concocted by Europeans during the past three hundred years starting late in the eighteenth century and continuing to this day. This was how European powers divided the world among themselves without regard to the implications and impact this division would have on populations across the world.
Nepal was created as a country in the high Himalayas, while other countries like Ethiopia, Abyssinia then, was landlocked into the highlands buttressing the Horn of Africa or the Somali Peninsula, which was divided among the three European countries of Italy, the UK and France.
Note we had French Somaliland, currently Djibouti, British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland (together currently the Federal Republic of Somalia), and buttressing them was Abyssinia, which is now Ethiopia. Eritrea further on the north of the Horn was also an Italian colony.
The fact that countries are landlocked and deprived of access to a sea does not deny them, however, to have rights with respect to use the seas of others between them and the seas. It is why the world has worked out conventions in this regard on how to manage their rights of accessibility to seas under international law, which outline them, and of course, their obligations too.
Coastal countries are obliged to provide safe, reasonable and non-discriminatory access to seas to landlocked countries. All disputes which arise with respect to accessibility to seas of landlocked countries must be handled through international law, diplomatically and peacefully.
The Ethio-Somali Complex Story
Abyssinia or present-day northern Ethiopia (Tigray and Amhara States) expanded into the Somali lands in the nineteenth to twentieth century and took over, as part of its territory, a significantly large part of Somali territory representing over a third of present-day Ethiopia, currently partially represented by the Somali State of Ethiopia.
Major parts of the Somali territory and people are today in the Oromia State of Ethiopia and the State of Harar, which was the capital of Somalis before 1897, when Abyssinia conquered it with the help of the European colonizers of France and the United Kingdom at the time. Dire dawa, a major city of Somalis in Ethiopia is also federally administered outside the orbit of the Somali state of Ethiopia. Abyssinia changed its name in 1931 to Ethiopia.
After the creation of the Somali state in 1960 through the merger of Ex-British Somaliland and the Italian Administered ex-UN Trust Territory of Somalia in 1960, its relations with Ethiopia started sour and was mostly marked by Somalia’s claims on Ethiopia for its lost territories. It led to wars and skirmishes between the two countries, which lasted until the collapse of the Somali state early in 1991.
Ever since and until early this year 2024, relations between the two countries and peoples was calmer and less pronounced. It was, indeed, peaceful and the populations of the two countries, which were originally segregated from each other, came to know each other better and learned that they could live together in peace and prosperity. An integrated economic platform was even discussed after the formation of the present Somali government in 2012.
Regime changes in Africa are generally not smooth and both governments of Somalia and Ethiopia changed hands and new administrations took over, which do not see matters on the same prism. They probably both respond to unwarranted foreign advice from beyond the region, which has brought the improving relationship between the two countries not only to a standstill but to a downhill sliding state.
The New Ethiopian Aggression on Somalia
In one of the most blatant pronouncements of recent world history, Ethiopia declared on January 1st, 2024, that it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with one of the regions of Somalia. That was an uncalled-for aggression, which can only be labelled as lawlessness on the part of Ethiopian Government.
It forgot the neighborliness, the earlier closer relations that was developing between the two countries, the presence of Ethiopian troops in Somalia, as part of the African Union Peacekeeping mission in Somalia, the old story of the stressful and difficult relations between the two countries, the existence of a large Somali population and territory in Ethiopia and, indeed, both the African and international law on sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries.
The unverified populations statistics claimed by Ethiopia of some 120 million was a wrong justification to aggress Somalia. It could have had access to Somali waters just as Uganda or for that matter South Sudan and even Ethiopia, has access to Kenya coastal ports or for that matter the similar access Ethiopia, itself, has access to Djibouti ports or any other landlocked country across the globe on the coasts and seas of coastal countries.
The signing of the MoU and the insistence thereof of Ethiopia on implementing it was undiplomatic, unnecessary, and erroneous at best. Ethiopia probably mistook the Somali clan quarrels as a weakness or a diminished Somali nationalism. It forgot that Somalis are a family, which is more than a nation and family quarrels are no indication that they would allow others to break into their homes.
The Somali Nation
The Somali nation represents a people in the Horn of Africa called the Somali people. They are the most widely spread people of eastern Africa in general. They are spread over definitely four countries where they have both native territories and populations and they are spread also along the eastern rim of Africa from Somalia down to South Africa where they have businesses across many nations.
They all speak the same language, Somali and they have the same culture and religion. They are families that inter-related and marry from each other. They usually do not marry into other peoples, although migration to many parts of the world over the past four decades have exposed them to more people than ever. They are currently found in over 74% of the world’s countries in the United Nations, where some of them are part and parcel of the highest political and business organizations of many a nation.
Contrary to the fake statistics given on Somali populations (about 20 million in Somalia, three million in Kenya, six million in Ethiopia and 1 million in Djibouti), the Somali population is much larger and some people put them at over seventy million if not more. They put Somalia at some 35 million, Ethiopian Somalis at some 25 million, Kenya at some 12 million and Djibouti at 1.5 million. They live in a territory of about 1.4 million square km in the Horn of Africa in the four countries of Djibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia, and Kenya, owning the longest coast in the continent, including parts of the coast of Kenya, which is Somali between Tana River estuary and the actual Somali border.
They are fiercely nationalistic and would protect their homes to death. Many a country has learned the hard way to stay away from the them, although lately, some countries, perhaps, believe Somali nationalism is diminished. There are, indeed, some Somalis who respond to others’ wishes positively, but generally the Somali would never accept to let go of Somali territories.
The thousands of years they were in the region, with no other people crowding them there, including the Arab nation which is closer to them through the religion of Islam, is a clear evidence of that. The Arab nation from the Hijaz and Yemen who went all the way to Atlantic Africa have been able to impose their language and culture on all those peoples but not on the Somali who is closer to them than any other nation, twenty-nine km at the narrowest to 300 km at the widest, along the Gulf of Aden. Even the Kiswahili further south on the East coast of Africa have adopted Arabic mixed with local languages and dialects, not the Somali who fiercely maintains his language and culture.
When a Country’s Government becomes Lawless
Members of the United Nations Organization and members of the African Union have all signed conventions and agreements that are internationally and regionally accepted by all parties. The heart of these conventions and agreements include clauses and articles that countries would not aggress each other to maintain peace and security on earth and space.
Although it is common for some countries to break the international conventions and wars breakout between countries, no country has ever done a blatant aggression as Ethiopia has done on Somalia. It signed an MoU with one of the regions of the country. It is the first in the continent. The act was a clear indication of lawlessness on the part of Ethiopia, and common sense and international law require that it rescind that MoU. Somalia could have done a similar action, especially knowing that some of the regions of Ethiopia want to secede from Ethiopia but it refrained from such an action.
Although in legal parlance, an MoU is considered a non-committal declaration of intent, without imposing legal responsibilities on the parties involved, the very essence of signing such a document between a sovereign country like Ethiopia and a region in Somalia without the involvement of the sovereign nation of Somalia is aggression by all standards, where Somalia reserves to respond in kind or even more.
Ethiopia knows it has broken international law and conventions on territorial integrity of nations and their sovereignty and it needs to reverse itself. It has already caused a lot of damage to itself and the region. It crossed and broke all the international safeguards to protect the sovereignty of nations. It would thus be in its interest to reverse course and cancel the MoU unilaterally instead of running around to negotiate with Somalia through third parties. The current negotiations between Ethiopia and Somalia on the request of Ethiopia through the mediation of Türkiye is no more than an attempt to save face for the Noble Laureate Prime Minister of Ethiopia, who is at the center of this scandal.
This would be good for both countries and may lead to closer relations in the place of putting more pressure on the governments of Somalia and Ethiopia, who are both under tremendous internal pressures. There is no place for lawlessness on the part of governments in the Horn of Africa in these uncertain times.