Djibouti

By: Ari Nave

Source:

 Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

Djibouti

Djibouti’s strategic location on the Strait of Mandeb, where the Red Sea meets the Indian Ocean, has shaped its history. For centuries, the region was a crossroads where the peoples of Africa and the Middle East mingled and traded. In modern times, Djibouti, devoid of significant natural resources, has depended economically on its role as an outlet to the European and Indian Ocean trade for landlocked Ethiopia. While Djibouti’s arid countryside supports a population of nomadic pastoralists, the country produces only three percent of its required food. The majority of the population lives in the capital of the virtual city-state, Djibouti, Djibouti. The capital’s rail connections and free port provide most of the country’s income. Because of the economic and military vulnerability of the country, the population moved slowly to sever ties with France, and Djibouti was one of the last African colonies to declare independence. Though Djibouti has a strong commercial sector and one of Africa’s best telecommunications infrastructures, much of the population remains impoverished. And while the country has avoided the warfare that has devastated its neighbors, longstanding ethnic antagonisms continue to divide its population.

Early History

Djibouti

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Little is known about the early history of the region. For thousands of years, since the first human populations migrated out of Africa, the area of present-day Djibouti has provided a gateway to the Middle East, just 23 kilometers (14 miles) across the Strait of Mandeb. In prehistoric times, the first speakers of Semitic languages (spoken today in both Ethiopia and the Middle East) passed through the region, as did cultural innovations such as nomadic pastoralism, which still provides a livelihood for many Djiboutians.

Before the rise of Islam, the ancient walled seaport city of Zeila developed just east of present-day Djibouti, in a region then dominated by the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia in the area presently known as Ethiopia. Arab and Persian traders inhabited the city, as did the Afar (DANAKIL) people, who also populated the countryside. The booming trade in slaves and silver supported the rise of the kingdom of Adal, centered on Zeila. Adal dominated present-day Djibouti and parts of the surrounding region. The earliest written record of its capital, Zeila, comes from the Arab geographer al-Ya’qubi, who noted the prominence of Arab traders when he described the port in 889 C.E..

Zeila was one of the principal points through which Islam came to the Horn of Africa. By the eighth or ninth century, Islam had become firmly established in the coastal communities, although it only had an impact on the population at large after the tenth and eleventh centuries. With the widespread adoption of Islam and improved access to Arabian and Persian markets, Muslim kingdoms such as Adal succeeded in asserting their independence from Christian Abyssinia. During this time, large numbers of Somali Issas migrated into southern parts of the region, driving the Afars to the north. From the thirteenth until the sixteenth century, power struggles between the Muslim sultanates and the Christian Abyssinians shook the region, though the area of present-day Djibouti generally remained Muslim. In the late sixteenth century invaders from the West defeated Adal; a number of independent Afar sultanates including Tadjoura, Raheita, and Aussa filled the power vacuum. These sultanates exist to this day, although the sultans have limited political power.

Thus, by the seventeenth century, the traditional cultures and political structures of present-day Djibouti had taken shape. Both the Afars and the Issas are Afroasiatic-speaking pastoralists who share many cultural traditions, social structures, values, and beliefs. The traditional political cultures of the two groups differ, however. The Afars belong to hierarchical chiefdoms divided into noble and common clans. The Issas, in contrast, consist of more egalitarian clans, although they recognize a religious leader, the Ogaz, who resides in Ethiopia. The territory of the Afars extends into neighboring Eritrea and Ethiopia, and that of the Issas extends into Ethiopia and Somalia.

Arabs dominated the trade in the Horn of Africa until the nineteenth century. They paid tribute to local Afar and Issa chiefs for passage of their caravans into the interior. By the sixteenth century Portuguese traders began to anchor at ports such as Tadjoura and Obock. These ports exported commodities such as slaves, coffee, and perfume in exchange for firearms, salt, and cloth, which were carried by caravans to inland markets in Ethiopia. The growing trade with Ethiopia attracted the attention of the French, who also sought control over Indian Ocean commerce. After several exploratory expeditions, the French gained a foothold at Obock in 1862 in exchange for a fee paid to the local sultan. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the coastal ports on the Strait of Mandeb took on great strategic importance. However, it was not until 1881 that France established a trading company in Obock and sent a small number of colonizers. In 1884 the French concluded a similar agreement with the sultan of Tadjoura.

Colonial Period

In 1888 France established the colony of French Somaliland. The French initially chose the port of Obock as its administrative center. When the French decided to develop the colony as a commercial gateway to Ethiopia, however, they abandoned Obock, since surrounding mountains made it too costly to construct a railroad into the hinterland. In its place they selected Djibouti City because of its easier access to the interior. Djibouti City was named the capital of French Somaliland in 1892. The French governor, Léonce Lagarde, established strong ties with Ethiopia and signed a treaty with Emporer Menelik in 1897 declaring French Somaliland as Ethiopia’s trade outlet. In the same year, the French began construction of the rail line. It reached Addis Ababa in 1917 and greatly expanded the volume of trade passing through Djibouti City. During this period, many Somalis, including some belonging to non-Issa clans, migrated to French Somaliland for construction work on the railroad, and increasing numbers of Arab merchants settled in the city to take advantage of the growing trade.

French control of the region met with some resistance when Issa and Afar nomads refused to be disarmed or pay taxes. Instances of violence, however, were minimal. France was primarily concerned with the construction of the railroad and the development of Djibouti City and largely ignored the inhabitants of the interior. Under French rule, conflicts between the Afars and the Issas over pasture and cattle were recurrent, and Tadjoura continued to be a center of the illegal trade in Ethiopian slaves who were destined for Arabia and Persia.

In 1935 Italy invaded Ethiopia with an eye on French Somaliland. Unhappy with their dependence on the French rail line, the Italians invested heavily in the construction of a road to Assab, where they built up a port to compete with Djibouti City. When Italy declared war on France in 1940, Italy had some 40,000 troops in Ethiopia, whereas the Allies had only about 9,000 troops in the region. However, France soon fell to Germany, and in 1940, the fascist Vichy government secured control of French Somaliland. Its actions included the summary execution of literate Somalis as “potential defectors.” By 1942, British troops had forced the Italians in Ethiopia to surrender, and after a British blockade of Djibouti City’s port, the Vichy French surrendered as well. The Free French, allied with Great Britain, assumed control.

In 1946 France instituted significant changes in the political structure of French Somaliland. It created a representative council that exercised some degree of self-government. The twenty council seats were allocated equally to French nationals and local people. French Somaliland also became an overseas territory, granting the inhabitants French nationality and representation in the French National Assembly. However, in granting equal numbers of seats to Afars, Arabs, and Somalis (including the Issas), the French exacerbated pre-existing ethnic tensions, particularly since these groups’ populations in the country were not equal. (The population was roughly 20 percent Afar, 35 percent Issa, 20 percent non-Issa Somali, 5 percent Arab, and 5 percent French; the remainder are other foreigners.) Armed conflicts broke out between the Gadaboursis and Issas in 1949. The French electoral system classified both of these groups as Somalis and thus permitted them to elect only one representative between them. The election of a Gadaboursi in 1949 left Issas feeling disenfranchised, which provoked an assault on the elected senator. The attack sparked a riot resulting in thirty-eight deaths.

In 1958 France offered each overseas territory the opportunity to decide by popular referendum whether to remain part of the Republic of France or to become completely autonomous states. Over three-quarters of the colony’s electorate chose to remain part of the French community as part of the Fifth Republic, in part out of fears of forcible annexation after the unification of British and Italian Somaliland into an independent Somalia. Many also doubted the feasibility of independence for French Somaliland alone, given its lack of natural resources.

Many Issas and other Somalis supported independence and perhaps union with Somalia, while the Afar sought to maintain ties to France, largely in order to avoid Somali domination. Consequently the French strengthened their ties with the Afar community. After Charles de Gaulle’s visit to Djibouti City sparked nationalist riots that left several people dead and many wounded, the government scheduled a second referendum on independence in 1967. However, just prior to the referendum, France expelled thousands of ethnic Somalis, labeled alien residents, from the territory. Consequently, even though the Issas, the largest group in the territory, overwhelmingly supported independence, the Afars dominated the referendum, which approved continued association with France. That year, France signaled its alignment with the Afar minority and its opposition to Somali nationalism by renaming French Somaliland the “French Territory of the Afars and the Issas.”

The French gradually abandoned their commitment to an Afar-dominated colony. After 1967, Somali immigration had resulted in an increasingly nationalist Somali majority resentful of Afar dominance and potentially sympathetic to unification with Somalia. Meanwhile, the success of Marxist guerrillas in neighboring Ethiopia (home to a large Afar population) sparked French fears that Ethiopia’s revolutionary government might absorb the territory. Pressured by both the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and other international agencies, France reluctantly agreed to hold yet another referendum in 1977, in which nearly 95 percent of the population now chose independence. On June 27 1977, the former French Territory of the Afars and the Issas emerged as the independent Republic of Djibouti.

Republic of Djibouti

Hassan Gouled Aptidon, an Issa, became the country’s first president. He quickly leaned toward personal rule and in 1979 created a single-party state controlled by his supporters. The Afar formed a clandestine resistance movement, the Front démocratique pour la libération de Djibouti (FDLD). In 1981 and 1987 Gouled was reelected president; he had been the only permitted candidate in these elections. When a bomb exploded in the headquarters of Gouled’s party in 1986, over a thousand people were arrested in a draconian crackdown on political dissidents.

Djiboutian Democracy  A ballot is cast in January 2003 as part of Djibouti's first multiparty parliamentary elections since its independence from France in 1997.

(Mahamed Ahmed/AP Images)

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Ethnic hostilities only intensified as Gouled’s regime increasingly ruled out the possibility of political expression by Afars and others. A militant Afar resistance force of some 3,000 troops organized after 1991 and began to capture much of the north of the country. French diplomats were unable to broker an agreement between Gouled and the insurgent Afars. Under pressure from France and numerous emerging opposition groups, Gouled was forced to schedule another referendum in 1992 to approve a draft constitution that permitted limited multiparty politics. Though voters approved the referendum, most Afars boycotted it and challenged its result. Since the constitution required opposition parties to obtain government approval to run in the December 1992 elections, Gouled was able to eliminate any serious challenge to his power. Not surprisingly, his party won every seat in the national assembly, since the majority of the population had boycotted an election that they viewed as a hoax. Fighting continued. In July 1993 the government mounted a large and successful offensive against the Afar resistance movement.

The Afar insurgents, though greatly weakened, did not surrender. International human rights organizations attacked the Gouled regime for allegedly committing summary executions, detaining people without charge, and harassing the civilian population. Thousands of civilians fled toward the Ethiopian border. In the face of a military impasse, the Afar insurgency movement split, and one faction entered into negotiations with the Gouled government. The negotiations led to a comprehensive treaty in December 1994. The accord provided for a power-sharing agreement based upon ethnic quotas to ensure fair representation, and an amnesty for the Afar insurgents, many of whom ultimately joined Djibouti’s armed forces.

Ongoing domestic unrest and heavy military spending damaged Djibouti’s economy during the early 1990s. Consequently, the country experienced increasing difficulty servicing its debt, and international lenders demanded that the government increase taxes and cut spending. In 1995, trade unions and teachers held strikes in response to these government austerity measures. Meanwhile, the aging Gouled had to leave the country from December 1995 until February 1996 to seek medical treatment in France. Because Gouled had monopolized power, a destabilizing struggle for succession ensued. Upon his return, he suspended the civil rights of prominent opposition leaders and restated his intention to remain in office until his term expired in 1999. In 1999 presidential elections, Ismail Omar Guellah, Gouled’s nephew, won a landslide victory to succeed Gouled as president. While the election was confirmed as legal, opponents claimed that intimidation prevented voters from supporting other candidates.

Twenty-first century Djibouti faces many challenges. Though Afar rebels signed a peace accord with the government in 2001 ending a ten-year uprising, some analysts fear the reemergence of ethnic conflict between the Afars and the Issas. The Afars constitute one-fifth of the population; they are the second largest ethnic group and they dominate the north. One third of Djiboutians, mainly in the south, identify themselves as Issas; they are the single largest ethnic group in the country. The presence of numerous refugees from Ethiopia and illegal aliens from Somalia poses another problem for Djibouti. Estimates vary, but tens of thousands of refugees now reside in Djibouti, where they strain the country’s limited agricultural, environmental, and financial resources. In 2003 the United States committed ninety million dollars to Djibouti, making it the largest recipient of U.S. development aid in sub-Saharan Africa. The U.S. considers Djibouti a key ally in its global campaign against terrorism.

See also Islam in Africa; Pastoralism.

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