AFRICAN
African
Perspectives
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A Change in the African Horn Balance of Powers
Written by: Assem Fath al-Rahman
Sudanese Researcher
Publisher: Future Sudanese Center – Khartoum – 2012
Reviewer: Abdel Rahman Abdel Fattah
The African Horn is currently witnessing a state of political ebullience in is internal environment, in addition to a foreign, regional
and international targeting, a matter which takes the whole region
to a state of changing the balance of powers. Such a state is attributed to its strategic importance and its social, economic, political,
security and military effectiveness.
Historically, African Horn means the Horn that includes the Somali people, then was expanded to include Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia,
and was further expanded to include most east African states and the Lakes
region, especially Kenya and the Sudan, thus, it was called the Great African
Horn.
The writer believes that the USA is currently playing a huge role in the
events and changes taking place in the African Horn, especially after the September11, 2011 attacks. According to analysts, such American roles lead to
creating a kind of internal instability in various African Horn countries, thus
leading to a regional turbulence despite the serious efforts exerted to contain
the situation.
In this vein, various factors have contributed to destabilizing this region on
the security, political, economic and social levels, making it a local, regional
and international conflict and dispute zone. Furthermore, due to the fact that
this region is the gateway from and to the Red Sea, Eden Gulf, Arab Gulf
and the Indian Ocean, it attracts the interest of local, regional and international powers that seek control and domination over the region.
Due to the proximity of the African Horn to the Arab Gulf oil areas, various international powers have worked hard to secure their sources of oil
through establishing military bases and exchanging intelligence information
with other African Horn countries. The African Horn also occupies an economic importance that is attributed to the mineral wealth and oil found on
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African
its coasts and in various countries.
Thereupon, active international
and regional powers are currently
trying to redraw the African Horn
so as to control this region through
redrafting the concept of Huge African Horn that express political,
economic, security and strategic interests of the USA and its allies in
north and south Africa and the
Great Lakes area.
According to the writer, since the
1960s, the region witnessed a devastating war between the Ethiopian
government and the Eritrean Liberation Movement on the one hand,
and the Tigray Liberation Movement on the other hand. Such a war
resulted in the seizure of the Eritrean Liberation Movement to the
power in Asmara city and to the defeat of regime of the Ethiopian
President Mengistu Haile at the
hand of the Tigray Liberation
Movement, thus forcing most of the
Ethiopian forces to escape to the Sudan with their full equipment; forming later the Democratic Revolutionary Front; the current governing
coalition.
Furthermore, both Eritrea and
Ethiopia have adopted armed opposition when their relations with the
salvation regime has deteriorated
upon their accusation to the regime
of spreading the Islamic tide in such
countries. Moreover, there were the
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wars and skirmishes such as those
that occurred between Somalia and
Kenya in 1963 and 1976 over the
Somali (NFD) region and between
Somalia and Ethiopia in 1977 and
1978 on the occasion of the Somali
request to restore the Ogaden region.
One of the most important conflicts in this respect is the current
Somali war that erupted in 1991
upon the stepping down of General
Siad Barre and the emergence of the
Young Mujahideen movement that
substituted the Islamic courts that
have been cancelled upon the Ethiopian intervention in 2006, which in
turn led to the contribution of
Sheikh Sherif Sheikh Ahmed in the
foreign-backed transitional government. However, such a government
lacked hegemony, being based on
tribal foundations. Nonetheless, despite the foreign military support to
the government, it failed to address
the crisis, even the most active parties in the region failed to solve this
crisis. According to regional and international givings, the Somali crisis
can never be solved within a SomaliSomali framework, but regional and
international parties’ conciliation is
a must to reach a solution.
Concerning the current situation,
the researcher points to the emergence of new states in the region
(Eritrea – South Sudan – Somalia)
and their tense relations with their
SIS
African
mother country, not to mention the
role of the USA in such secession,
thus getting the chance to reassemble the region according to its
interests. There is also the Israeli
policy which seeks to take hold of
the Sudan and Egypt through its
attempts to intervene in the Nile Basin and the Red Sea by their existence in the African Horn. Undoubtedly, the Sudanese Egyptian interests are related with the Nile Headwaters region which represents a
strategic depth for both states. In
order to solve the problem of instability in the region, the writer asked
the African Horn states to adopt a
new vision that up hoists dialogue
and conciliation. In this respect, he
applied practical plans for reaching
a peaceful settlement for the conflicts, reforming and redirecting the
national institutions towards a sustainable development and fighting
poverty, instead of redirecting such
institutions towards fostering the
military effort, never forgetting the
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role of the African Union in resolving the existing conflicts.
Finally, establishing a cohesive
regional security and activating all
integration issues constitute a framework for entrenching relations
among nations and for establishing a
suitable regional environment for
enhancing cooperation among states
in the region in all fields. Furthermore, the path of changing the balance of powers in the region should
be in the direction of consolidating
the states. This should take place
through forming a political, economic, security and military tie, under the African Union umbrella,
among the states in the region. Such
a tie should contribute to resolving
conflicts and suspended issues, to
realizing stability and facing foreign
challenges according to collective
rules and regulations that would
take the interests of the African
Horn and the whole African continent into consideration.
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