Djibouti: Pawn of the Horn of Africa 0810814153, 9780810814158

Citation preview

C. .' CUl

5ALL0U LIBRARY BUENA VIST* COLLEGE

FORM LAKE, IOWA 50588 3 5148 00060175 3

JQ 3421 .A3 1977

7277598

Saint Veran, Robert DJIBOUTI, PAWN OF THE HORN OF AFRICA

OIMC (t

DATE DUE

—/ L-C ' ■5

f

f

DEMCO

38-297

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2020 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation

https://archive.org/details/djiboutipawnofhoOOOOsain

AFRICAN HISTORICAL DICTIONARIES Edited by Jon Woronoff 1. Cameroon, by Victor T. LeVine and Roger P. Nye. 1974 2. The Congo (Brazzaville), by Virginia Thompson and Richard Adloff. 1974 3. Swaziland, by John J. Grotpeter. 1975 4. The Gambia, by Harry A. Gailey. 1975 5. Botswana, by Richard P. Stevens. 1975 6. Somalia, by Margaret F. Castagno. 1975 7. Dahomey, by Samuel Decalo. 1975 8. Burundi, by Warren Weinstein. 1976 9. Togo, by Samuel Decalo. 1976 10. Lesotho, by Gordon Haliburton. 1977 11. Mali, by Pascal James Imperato. 1977 12. Sierra Leone, by Cyril Patrick Foray. 1977 13. Chad, by Samuel Decalo. 1977 14. Upper Volta, by Daniel Miles McFarland. 1978 15. Tanzania, by Laura S. Kurtz. 1978 16. Guinea, by Thomas O’Toole. 1978 17. Sudan, by John Voll. 1978 18. Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, by R. Kent Rasmussen. 1979 19. Zambia, by John J. Grotpeter. 1979 20. Niger, by Samuel Decalo. 1979 21. Equatorial Guinea, by Max Liniger-Goumaz. 1979 22. Guinea-Bissau, by Richard Lobban. 1979 23. Senegal, by Lucie G. Colvin. 1981 24. Morocco, by William Spencer. 1980 25. Malawi, by Cynthia A. Crosby. 1980 26. Angola, by Phyllis Martin. 1980 27. The Central African Republic, by Pierre Kalck. 1980 28. Algeria, by Alf Andrew Heggoy. 1981 29. Kenya, by Bethwell A. Ogot. 1981 30. Gabon, by David E. Gardinier. 1981 31. Mauritania, by Alfred G. Gerteiny. 1981 32. Ethiopia, by Chris Prouty and Eugene Rosenfeld. 1981 33. Libya, by Lorna Hahn. 1981

DJIBOUTI Fawn of the Horn of Africa ROBERT THOLOMIER An Abridged Translation and Postscript by VIRGINIA THOMPSON and RICHARD ADLOfF

The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Metuchen, N J., St London 1981

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Saint Veran, Robert. Djibouti, pawn of the Horn of Africa. Abridged translation of: A Djibouti avec les Afars et les Issas / Robert Saint Veran. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Djibouti—Politics and government. 2. Djibouti— Economic conditions. 3. Djibouti--Social conditions. L Thompson, Virginia McLean, 1903- . IL Adloff, Richard. IIL Title. JQ3421. A3 1977. S34213 967'. 71 81-143 ISBN 0-8108-1415-3 AACR2

Copyright© 1977 by Robert Tholomier Translation and Postscript copyright© 1981 by Virginia Thompson and Richard Adloff Manufactured in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Biographical Note

v

Introduction

vii

1.

The TFAI's Peoples:

A Difficult Fusion

1

2.

The Government Apparatus

11

3.

The Internal Policy of the Territory

25

4.

Viewpoints on Independence

49

5.

The Territory’s Position Between Africa and Asia

77

6.

The Economy

103

7.

Conclusion

125

8.

Postscript

129

Bibliography

149

Glossary

156

Acronyms

157

Index

158

in

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Robert Lucien Tholomier's professional career included two years in the French government's Services des Ponts et Chaussees in France; eleven and a half years with the FrancoEthiopian railroad, of which two were spent in Ethiopia; and fifteen and a half years with the Public-Works Service of Dji¬ bouti. He was formerly a delegate from Djibouti to the Soci¬ ety Francaise des Ingenieurs d'Outre-Mer and a correspondent reporting on the TFAI for the periodical Marches Tropicaux. He is the author of several articles on that territory pub¬ lished in the Revue Franpaise d'Etudes Politiques Africaines. After an overseas career that spanned the years from 1936 to 1965, he retired to the southern French town of Cagnes-surMer. He is a lecturer on archaeology, in which he has been actively engaged as an amateur, both in the Horn of Africa and on the Cote d'Azur. So important has now become the whole Red Sea region in general, and so little concerning Djibouti in particular has been published in English, that Robert Tholomier has given permission for the translation of portions of his exhaustive study, A Djibouti, Avec les Afars et les Issas. That book, published in France in 1977 under the pen name of Robert Saint-Veran, was awarded the Prix Marechal Lyautey by the Academie des Sciences d'Outre-Mer.

v

■

. '

'

.

INTRODUCTION

On July 3, 1967, there disappeared from the African scene the old colony of Obock and its Dependencies, which later had been renamed French Somaliland (C6te Franpaise des Somalis). In that summer of 1967, the French Territory of the Afars and the Issas (TFAI) succeeded French Somaliland. During the preceding summer, the territory had gone through a dif¬ ficult period: on August 25, 1966, during the visit of General Charles de Gaulle, it was officially reported that four per¬ sons had been killed and seventy wounded; soon afterward, on September 10, political agitation had resulted in five deaths and numerous wounded; and on March 20, 1967, in the wake of the referendum by which the inhabitants chose between union with the Metropole or total independence, twelve were killed and twenty-two wounded. However, in the referendum the TFAI had chosen, by a majority of 60 percent, to remain linked with France. 1 Geographically speaking, aside from a modification of the frontier with Ethiopia in 1947, the territory had scarcely changed since its beginnings._ A sort of irregular oval, about 220 by 150 kilometers, curving around a deep gulf on its long side, Djibouti has the appearance of a wedge thrust into the eastern flank of Africa. Despite its small size, it looks out in one direction on the Red Sea and in the other, on the In¬ dian Ocean, which explains the importance of Djibouti as a way station between the Metropole and some of its former overseas dependencies. Although that role considerably di¬ minished after those dependencies became independent, and the strategic importance of the former French Somaliland underwent a long eclipse after the Second World War because vii

viii

Djibouti

of the inadequacy of its defense establishment in comparison with the astounding modern means of aggression, it must be recognized that a further change is now taking place. With the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean evidently becoming more and more a field of maneuvers for the great powers, Djibouti once again seems to be an international target, and this fac¬ tor will probably have an increasing influence on its future. In the Horn of Africa, as elsewhere, "Geography is the moth¬ er of history. "2 The present study is confined to the period 1967-77 and does not attempt to deal with the history of the territory before 1967, a history whose multiple aspects contrast with its brief duration and which has already been recounted by others. In the opinion of long-time residents of the TFAI, any attempt to predict its future would be futile, considering that every attempt to build something solid in the country has been disconcertingly ephemeral. Thus, because of the unusual rapidity of the changes taking place in the Horn of Africa, studies of the region often seem outdated the moment they appear, at least insofar as they try to forecast events. As background, it might be useful to summarize the main elements of the complex evolution of the TFAL After having been a French colony with twenty-two successive gov¬ ernors between 1884 and 1946, the territory, in March of the latter year, entered a political era that resulted, in part, from the Second World War. Its administrative body, partly elected and, for the first time, composed of the native-born, was called the representative council. This assembly was authorized to vote the budget, legislate on certain local mat¬ ters, and appoint the territory's representatives to Metropoli¬ tan bodies. A deputy and a senator were elected by the popu¬ lation to sit in the French Parliament In August 1950, the representative council underwent important changes in its com¬ position, and its membership was increased. A second turning point was reached in June 1956, when the loi- cadre (enabling act) that aligned French Somali¬ land with the rest of the French Overseas Territories came into being. The representative council became the territorial assembly. A government council was created, comprising a president de jure, who was the governor, a native-born vicepresident, and ministers. A deputy and a senator continued to represent the territory in the French Parliament, and the

Introduction

IX

president of the republic appointed a representative of French Somaliland to the Economic and Social Council in France. A new policy was further indicated on September 28, 1958, when General de Gaulle--who had again become the head of government in June of that year—asked the people of France and its overseas territories to express themselves in a refer¬ endum on the validity of the constitution of the Fifth Republic. The inhabitants of French Somaliland voted "yes, " and a few months later it was given the status of an overseas territory. Finally, on March 19, 1967, by a local referendum, the territory's inhabitants confirmed its continuance as apart of France, and in July of the same year it acquired internal autonomy. Some critics saw in this a sort of superficial transformation involving only minor modifications and an in¬ significant change in nomenclature. As will be seen in the following chapters, however, it brought about an important re¬ vision of government institutions, the grant of extended pow¬ ers to the local administration, and, above all, conditions facilitating a new step toward their evolution. In any event, the new set-up seemed to a certain degree to promise, at least for some time, to stabilize if not terminate the difficult gestation period that had lasted thirty years.

The preparation of this book has been to several persons, most of whom live in the ly aided me in my search for information. I express here, without citing all of them, my their assistance.

facilitated thanks TFAI, who kind¬ should like to gratitude for

The prime minister, Ali Aref, gave me full permission to use the administrative documents of the territory and to call on the heads of the territorial services for assistance. The head of the information service, Robert Basset, permitted me to consult all the many back issues of the Reveil de Djibouti. The head of the TFAI delegation in the secretariat of state for the Overseas Departments and Territories, Robert Bonneau, placed at my disposal the periodicals and news¬ papers concerning his department. The manager of the Electricite de Djibouti, Jean-Pierre Braneyre, kindly assembled for my use a large number of

Dj ibouti

X

documents concerning public works, water, port, and finance.

electricity,

the

General Magendie and Colonel Cheveille allowed me to share their knowledge and long experience of tribal and ethno¬ logical matters. Daniel Rusconi, deputy in the National Assembly, sup¬ plied me with the legal data required for my discussion of legislative developments. Similarly, Henri Serres, technical director of the Franco-Ethiopian railroad, provided the ma¬ terial needed for the section concerning that railway. Finally, I am not forgetting my American friends, Virginia Thompson and Richard Adloff, writers on Frenchspeaking territories, who were among the first to encourage me to write a sequel to their book Djibouti and the Horn of Africa, published in 1967.

Notes 1. 2.

See pages 5, 17. Pierre d'Istria, De Suez a Akaba,

Paris,

1968,

p.

12.

Map reproduced from Virginia Thompson and Richard Adloff, Djibouti and the Horn of Africa, courtesy Stanford University Press.

1.

THE TFAI'S PEOPLES:

A DIFFICULT FUSION

Aside from the French and the communities that had migrated into the territory at different times (Yemeni Arabs, Somalis from neighboring areas, Indians, Ethiopians, Greeks, Ar¬ menians, and Italians, as well as some Sudanese and Chinese), the two basic ethnic groups of the country, those that one can really term indigenous, are the Afars and the Issas. These two groups have remote common ancestors who were the re¬ sult of crossbreeding between the local Bushman stock and south-oriental Caucasoids, as modified in the course of cen¬ turies by the admixture of Phoenicians, Assyrians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, and Jews. Despite the obvious affinities of physical traits, customs, folklore, tribal organization, re¬ ligion, rudimentary culture, identical ways of life in the same climate, and a fatalistic attitude toward death, these two peo¬ ples, the Afars and the Issas, have always clashed with each other. It is of some interest to look more closely at this special aspect of one of the elements that constitute--aside from the future of the TFAI—the core of the complex prob¬ lem of the Horn of Africa The Afars and the Issas form two ethnic groups that inhabit the territory (as the French Parliament, in 1967, rec¬ ognized in choosing the name of TFAI), but they are by no means wholly concentrated there. Moreover, in the native milieu, especially among the nomads, the definition of polit¬ ical frontiers has only artificial meaning, and the indis¬ pensable seasonal movement of the flocks has induced the authorities of Djibouti and Addis Ababa to adopt a somewhat flexible attitude in this respect

1

2

Djibouti

In the southern part of Eritrea, Afars occupy today an important enclave in Ethiopia, whose axis is approximately the Aouache River and which extends to the vicinity of the town of that name; and about three-quarters of the TFAI is inhabited by Afars. The Issas are installed on the remain¬ ing quarter and in a pocket of Ethiopian territory, whose ex¬ treme western point is the village of Mehesso, 150 kilometers west of Dire-Daoua, and whose southern limit is the begin¬ ning of the mountain mass of Harrar. In the French territory, the separation between the two groups can be defined as a line running from the head of the Gulf of Tadjoura (Goubet-el-Kharab) to Dikhil and pro¬ longed from there toward the west There is little question that the severity of the climate and the aridity of the land in the TFAI formed its people from the outset and obliged them to join forces in order to survive. Water was indispensable for survival, as well as grass to nourish the flocks, and fighting took place around the halfdried-up wells and on frontier land where the vegetation had been scorched by the sun. These conflicts, which originally were prompted by need, became ritualistic, and only a step was needed to transform them into armed raids. An increas¬ ing herd represented wealth and at the same time was a sign of superiority over a neighbor. In this way, the suzerainty of strong tribes was established, power conferring rank. Among the nomads, 1 the blood price was based on the fundamental principle of systematic punishment, involving the death of the person who had killed. To make the punishment less radical, and one that could be satisfied in terms of cat¬ tle, special conditions and arrangements between the chiefs of enemy tribes were necessary. Valor in combat was highly esteemed and most often was the basic theme of folksongs. It must be added that, although the principle of reprisal has been maintained, its expression has become much milder, thanks to the intervention of the French administration in the hinterland and also in the frontier areas, where it was sup¬ ported in this respect by the Ethiopian government Thus, in 1973, at Adagalla and Dikhil, there were Franco-Ethiopian meetings with the aim of finding areas of agreement between the Afars and the Issas, especially those living in sensitive regions, such as the Oued Obono and southwest of Morhai'to. The customary chiefs signed nonaggression agreements^ in the presence of the acting French high commissioner and the governor of Dire-Daoua. In the urban zone, relations between

The TFAI's Peoples

3

ethnic elements were subordinated to the cohabitation of the many groups that found work and lodging there. Clubs, school attendance, professional activities, sports, sometimes weddings, and other occasions brought young people into con¬ tact with each other. The youthful element, seeking more or less to shake off customary restraints, became more receptive to modern ideas. During the years 1946-49, it was even pos¬ sible to see Afar-Somali clubs established and to observe IssaAfar alliances against the members of the Gadaboursi com¬ munity, who were foreign Somalis. In this respect, there was reason to hope that the con¬ centration of the population in rural centers and the growth in educational facilities would prove to be factors of rapproche¬ ment between the groups and would introduce a degree of har¬ mony in human relations. But then an incident, sometimes trivial, would revive dormant animosities, triggering wide¬ spread brawls and discouraging the authorities, who were striving to make internal policy more flexible on the racial plane. It seemed that, deprived of their time-honored sub¬ jects of discord, the tribal groups in the urban centers found in politics an up-to-date excuse for their quarrels. This was undoubtedly an instinctive outlet, which unfortunately gave rise to casualties just as had been the case in their fathers' time. These were shadows sometimes lightened by brief periods of calm in the Somali-Afar world, when reconciliation was as easy to bring about as was a confrontation. And in the hinterland, an individual might even go so far as to give his neighbors access to pasturage.

Demography and the Coexistence of Ethnic Groups Until recently, estimates of the population of the TFAI have been rather vague, as have other vital statistics. The rea¬ sons for this include the ebb and flow of foreign Somalis of the Somali republic and Ethiopia, the migrations of the no¬ mads with their herds, the distrust of Africans toward census takers, the considerable variation in the number of troops as a result of international events, and the long vaca¬ tions taken by Europeans. Moreover, the political and cul¬ tural evolution as well as social-we If are operations indirectly affected the accuracy of the statistics. An individual, to vote, was required to give proof of citizenship in the form of a French identity card, either local or national, or a passport, and he must also have been a resident of the TFAI for at least six months. To draw family allowances, he had to de¬ clare formally his wife (or wives) and his children.

4

Dj ibouti

The inhabitants, especially those of the interior, final¬ ly came to understand, in the light of experience, that "cen¬ sus" was not synonymous with "tax roll. " Consequently, with the passage of time and the increase of facilities provided the census agents, the administration was able to establish fairly reliable figures, notably in the census operations of 1967, for the territory as a whole. Concurrently with the general census, sociodemographic studies were carried out at Djibouti with the aim of obtaining precise information in various fields (family, commercial, ethnic, etc. ) and of es¬ tablishing bases for town-planning studies. Along this line was the work undertaken in 1963-64 by the Socidtd Centrale pour l'Equipement du Territoire and resumed in late 1972 by the Centre d’Etudes Gdologiques et de Ddveloppement, which compiled a file of some 12, 000 entries. Two important factors marked the demographic evolu¬ tion of the territory in recent years. In the first place, from 1966 on there was voluntary or forced migration of for¬ eign Somalis, who returned to Somalia. They had come to the TFAI to find work or because they were opposed to the socialist regime at home. Secondly, beginning in April 1967 there occurred a voluntary or controlled movement of Afars from the vicinity of the Gulf of Tadjoura in the north toward the capital. The second population movement counterbalanced the first, so that the territory has been submerged by an im¬ migrant element exceeding that of the indigenous population. It also brought back to the south the Afars who, at the end of the nineteenth century, had been compelled under Somali pressure to withdraw from Zeila toward Djibouti and finally to recross the gulf. However that may be, the "organized" transfers of 1966 and 1967 were quite different from those that preceded them. The influx of foreign Somalis was, on the labor plane, the corollary of the law of supply and de¬ mand, whereas the regression of the Afars in the nineteenth century was due to the irresistible pressure of their more enterprising neighbors. Both those movements that occurred after 1966-67 were planned and artificial. They aggravated a permanent imbroglio that might well degenerate after the withdrawal of the tutelary authority. During 1975 and in early 1976, the situation was com¬ plicated by the arrival in the territory of Assahyamara Afars who had fled from their lands in Aoussa, which was under the harsh rule of the Ethiopians. At the same time, a new contingent of Somalis of the TFAI who lacked the required identity papers were expelled to their country of origin. Thus,

The TFAl's Peoples

5

the territory underwent a demographic transfusion that seemed timed to substantiate the opposition's demands for independence and its insistence that identity papers and voters' cards fol¬ lowed a sort of shuttle movement similar to that of the peo¬ ple involved. In 1975-76, Premier Ali Aref’s opponents strongly suspected him of having made a widespread distri¬ bution of French identity papers to the Assahyamara Afars who had been pushed out of Ethiopia. Aside from the economic, political, and strategic stakes involved, the incident last mentioned above touches on what is perhaps one of the most acute aspects of the Djiboutian problem. However, it is necessary to refer briefly to the events that preceded the 1967 referendum. After Gen¬ eral de Gaulle's visit to Djibouti on June 25, 1966, and the disorders that ensued, the authorities began in September to expel several thousand individuals who lacked identity papers and hence were unable to justify their continued presence in the territory. To these were added Somalis who left on their own initiative for the neighboring republic. On March 19, 1967, there took place in the TFAI the referendum by which General de Gaulle--who had seemed exasperated by the political instability prevailing in Djibouti — forthrightly asked the inhabitants: "Do you want the territory to be a part of the French Republic, with a governmental and administrative statute revised according to the basic princi¬ ples that have been explained to you?" A census was nec¬ essary before the referendum could be held, and it showed a total population of 125, 050, including 87, 200 of French na¬ tionality and 37, 850 foreigners. Among the former were 29, 810 Issas and French Somalis, 48, 270 Afars, and other ethnic groups of lesser importance. The statistics did not give a separate count of the Issas, who could be estimated at 16,500. The results of the plebiscite had one curious as¬ pect, in that the number of~"no" votes corresponded almost exactly to the total of Issa and Somali voters and that the "yes" votes closely reflected the total of European, Arab, and Afar voters, with a disparity of only about 1, 800. Be¬ sides their ethnic affinity referred to earlier, the Issas and the Somalis in general showed a similar attitude in the polit¬ ical sphere. A few days before the referendum, a barbed-wire barrier was built around the town of Djibouti, with the aim of preventing new infiltrations by outsiders. The local gov¬ ernment believed that those outsiders would cause disorders,

6

Dj ibouti

confusion during the voting, and a worsening of unemploy¬ ment. The day after the referendum, the authorities re¬ sumed the expulsion of "clandestine" intruders. It was diffi¬ cult to estimate the number of persons expelled at the fron¬ tier, but the figure of 2, 000 was mentioned for a two-week period, and a total of 8, 000 to 10, 000 between September 1966 and the end of April 1967. The existence of the "barrier" was the subject of pro¬ longed controversy in the Metropolitan press. It was charged that it was electrified or at least had been at the start of its construction. The general who was in command of the troops in the TFAI in 1976-77 formally denied this, stating in another connection that rumors of buried mines were pure fantasy and that the barrier itself served only to control at fixed points of passage the persons who crossed it, in particular those who entered the territory. On the other hand, no one denied that lighting devices had been erected. At the begin¬ ning of 1973, they were responsible for accidents to individu¬ als who tried to pass through the barrier at night, even though, according to President Georges Pompidou, "these people were never fired upon. " In this matter, therefore, one must take into account that the extraordinary increase in Djibouti's population cast doubt upon the impermeability of the barrier. Despite the description of "new wall of shame" given it by the irredentists who had emigrated, one is inclined to believe that the barbed-wire barrier had nothing in common with the Berlin wall. Toward the end of April 1967, Ali Aref, vice-president of the government council and an Afar, attempted to bring about a political reconciliation with the Issas. When he of¬ ficially became prime minister, he persevered in that effort, and in the elections for the government council on July 7, 1967, he accepted as members of his cabinet two Issa minis¬ ters, Djama Ali Bakal in the information post and Mohamed Ali Chirdon for the civil service. These appointments dis¬ pleased the fellow tribesmen of the two ministers, who, after the attempted assassination of Djama Ali Bakal, had to lie low for some time. However, Ali Aref did not give up his plan to replace the Somali dockworkers by Afars, and he in¬ tended to extend that ethnic favoritism in the autumn to the territorial services as a whole. Consequently, the opposi¬ tion, which was briefly disconcerted and passive, renewed its attacks at the beginning of 1968 and proclaimed that the interpretation of their mandate by the men in power repre¬ sented intolerable racial discrimination. Once more, violence

The TFAI’s Peoples

7

broke out. On April 21, 1968, at a football match, the Afar and Issa fans turned sport into riot, with the result that two persons were killed and about ten injured. On May 6, 1968, Ali Aref barely escaped being murdered by Issas and his driver was killed by a hand grenade. "My policy of uniting the Afars and the Issas is undoubtedly unwelcome to certain elements„influenced by a foreign country, " he stated after the incident. 6 In that connection, it could be argued that the attempt was the work of hardened killers, professional criminals for whom politics were secondary, as was shown by two of them three years later in the "Tadjoura affair. "4 it was never¬ theless true that there existed ignorant individuals easily in¬ flamed by impassioned speeches, even those delivered by men of good faith. In the case of the attempt against Ali Aref, two of the culprits, Ali Guelle Dirir and Abdi Hassan Liban, were arrested on the spot and two months later were sentenced, respectively, to imprisonment for life at hard la¬ bor and to twenty years of hard labor. A third individual, who stoutly denied participating in the attempt, was interro¬ gated some time later. He was Osman Rabeh, who surfaced later in connection with the kidnapping of the French ambas¬ sador at Mogadiscio. 5 A fourth member of the commando, Omar Elmi Kaireh, was sentenced to hard labor for life in absentia. Nevertheless, in the second half of 1968 there began a peaceful period such as the territory had not known for a long time. It seemed that the policy of collaboration between the ethnic groups was beginning to bear fruit. The president of the Chamber of Deputies, Maitre Castel, during a budget¬ ary session, did not fail to point this out, and he used the occasion to encourage investors to share in the revival of business and consequently of the territory's development. A new tragedy in the ethnic domain nevertheless took place in Djibouti and its environs at the end of May 1975, when fighting involved several thousand tribesmen--Issas of certain urban districts and Afars of the Arrhiba housing de¬ velopment. The high commissioner was compelled to call for two squadrons of the Metropolitan gendarmerie, who ar¬ rived by plane. He also declared a rigid curfew from 7 p. m. to 6 a. m. and forbade gatherings of more than five persons, these measures not being suspended until the end of August. Several hundred more individuals were expelled from the ter¬ ritory, and the opposition estimated their total as 380.

Djibouti

8

The origin of this episode seems to have been merely a case of adultery, in which an Issa married woman of Ethi¬ opian nationality, whose divorce was pending, had begun living with an Afar. Neutral observers speculated that the incident might simply have sparked a flame smoldering under the ashes. As for the opposition, it saw in the outbreak a devi¬ ous maneuver by Premier Aref to cling to power and to per¬ suade public opinion that a people capable of such acts was not yet ripe for independence. The leaders of the Ligue Populaire Africaine pour l'lnd^pendance (LPAI) claimed that the fighting did not represent a struggle between ethnic groups but rather clashes provoked by agitators between the propo¬ nents of secession and the dockworkers who were followers of Ali Aref. At all events, the troubles were serious at Djibouti, where there were sixteen deaths by official count, as well as twenty-five seriously wounded, 205 slightly in¬ jured, and nearly a thousand expulsions from the territory. At Dikhil, one person was killed. Peace was restored be¬ tween the ethnic groups by the exchange of prisoners and the intervention of troops and the police, not by the enforcement of customary law. At Djibouti, graver incidents took place the following year, during which political events seemed to overshadow the ethnic problem. Groups belonging to the LPAI, which at the start comprised almost exclusively Issas and other Somalis, clashed with followers of the Union Nationale pour l'lnddpendance (UNI), all of whom were Afars. In the Afri¬ can quarter of Djibouti, the disputes quickly degenerated into a fierce fight that left sixteen dead (thirteen Afars and three Issas) and sixty-four injured. These clashes seemed to con¬ firm that the opposition had now become a highly structured organization, complete with propaganda agents, neighborhood headquarters, and its own strong-arm force. The high com¬ missioner again decreed security measures--the curfew, a ban on public meetings, and patrolling of the African quarter by military personnel.

Notes 1.

2.

The Afars and the Issas are, more properly speaking, seminomadic. Their migratory movements are in no way comparable to those of the Touareg, for example. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, Dec. 22, 1973.

The TFAl's Peoples 3. 4. 5.

Le Rdveil de Djibouti, See page 18. See pages 87-88.

9 May 11,

1968.

-

2.

THE GOVERNMENT APPARATUS

The Executive and Legislative Branches After long discussions involving the local assembly and the French Parliament, the territory's new statute was adopted on July 3, 1967. Its name was changed from French Somali land to the more logical one of French Territory of the Afars and the Issas, and it was provided with a new administrative structure. The office of head of the territory was abolished, and a representative of France, called the high commissioner, was named by the cabinet in Paris, as was a deputy high commissioner. The functions assigned to the high commis¬ sioner were defined as the promulgation and application of the laws of the French Republic; the power to block any at¬ tempt by the TFAI government council to dissolve the terri¬ torial assembly (this power being unique in the overseas ter¬ ritories); the verification of the validity of laws drafted by the territorial chamber of deputies and the government coun¬ cil; the authority to make agreements between the territory and the Metropole concerning public-works programs, their financing, and the recruitment of technicians of the ministry of cooperation; and the general management and coordination of government services reserved to the French state, such as foreign policy and all branches concerned with relations with foreigners (such as internal security, immigration, and naturalization), as well as defense, public order, currency, justice (except customary law), the civil register, and, par¬ ticularly, the means of communication (aviation, radio, tele¬ vision, and the port) and nationality. 11

12

Dj ibouti

Louis Saget, who had served as governor since Sep¬ tember 1966, was named high commissioner in June 1967 and continued in that post until he was succeeded by Dominique Ponchardier in 1969. The existing territorial assembly became the Chamber of Deputies. As before, its members were elected by uni¬ versal suffrage, the candidates being chosen from the slate that won a majority of the votes in a one-round election. The Chamber's powers consisted principally of the drafting and adoption of the local budget and of the supplementary budget for the port; the assessment of taxes; making deci¬ sions regarding public land; codifying the system of bidding on public works; adopting the five-year plans (which, while remaining the province of the high commissioner, were gen¬ erally submitted to the assembly); electing the government council, against which it could adopt motions of censure that would force its resignation; supervision of the commercial port of Djibouti and the rules under which it operated; and the management of the territory's economy in respect to public works and services, such as roads, water supply, social and hospital services, and the like. The term of office for deputies was set at five years, and their number was limited to thirty-two. Between regular sessions of the Chamber, of which there were two every year (each of about two months' duration), urgent matters were handled by a permanent commission, which was appointed on a yearly basis. The government council comprised nine members--the maximum authorized by law--who were elected by the deputies either from among members of the majority party or promi¬ nent political figures. The deputy winning the largest number of votes became president of the council, or premier, and his collaborators, ministers; as a cabinet they were respon¬ sible to the Chamber of Deputies. This represented a marked change from the preceding situation under the loi-cadre of 1956, which provided that a government council that had lost the confidence of the territorial assembly was not required to resign. With the coming into force of the new statute and the cabinet's formation on July 7, 1967, the government could be overthrown by an absolute majority of the deputies in a no-confidence vote. For the first time in the political his¬ tory of the territory, the premier was local-bo rn--Ali Aref Bourhan, who had been vice-president of the government council at various times since May 1959, and notably since the withdrawal of Mohamed Kamil in April 1967. Following

The Government Apparatus

13

what had become a custom, Ali Aref took the portfolio of public works and of the port. Sponsored by the Paris gov¬ ernment, he was sufficiently adroit to attract most of the Afars, who, in recent years, had been split into several groups. In addition to its advisory powers concerning prices, employment, and educational policy, the government council was authorized to draft the territorial budget, control local state property, and appoint certain civil servants. As regards the electoral districts, the following divi¬ sion was adopted: Djibouti was assigned thirteen deputies; Tadjoura-Obock, eleven; Dikhil, five; and Ali Sabieh, three. Registered voters totaled 39, 312. By way of comparison, it is noteworthy that the November 1963 elections had had a slightly different base. Djibouti then was allotted fourteen seats; Tadjoura-Obock, eleven; Dikhil, five; and Ali Sabieh, two; at that time the registered voters numbered 28, 728.

The Administration and the Dual System of Management Generally speaking, rather sweeping changes had occurred in the internal administration of the territory well before the advent of the new statute, but they became even more marked thereafter. Natives of the territory came to play an increas¬ ingly important role in the government services, and young people took an active part in the life of the country. In the mid-1970s, the Chamber accepted a revision of the 1938 law governing appointments to the civil service, which facilitated the admission of qualified local-born candidates. Africaniza¬ tion was progressively extended to administrative positions in the hinterland, as French career noncommissioned officers departed. Thus, the employment of Europeans under contract declined, and the new policy was to use the services of those specialists provided by the ministry of cooperation, many of whom were conscripts who in this way served their term of military service. For the officials of the Metropolitan gen¬ eral cadres, there was no question of replacements, and their number therefore continued to be relatively large. In brief, the category of "salaries paid to Europeans" in the local budget was trimmed as much as possible. 1 High Commissioner Louis Saget was freed by a law of July 3, 1967, from conforming closely to the directives issued from Paris years before concerning execution of the

14

Dj ibouti

five-year plan for technical assistance to the territory. In 1968, therefore, he was able to draw up a series of agree¬ ments relating to specific public works financed by France, and, jointly with the prime minister, give them official ap¬ proval. Even more important than those agreements was the regulation of 1974 that modified the organization of the police force and the procedure for elections, for it transferred to the prime minister what had formerly been prerogatives of the high commissioner. On the whole, the administrative services dependent on the high commissioner were much the same as in the time of the governors. The advent of autonomy did not radically modify their structure, although the buildings they occupied were completely renovated or rebuilt. In the year 1976 alone, public and private investments in building totaled more than 700 million FD, or nearly 18 million French francs (about U. S. $3. 6 million). In contrast to the state services, the autonomous ter¬ ritorial services grew markedly as regards their organiza¬ tion, responsibilities, and personnel. Under the direct or¬ ders of the prime minister, assisted by a European techni¬ cal adviser, were placed not only the staff of his cabinet but such territorial services as those of the port, public works, Electricity de Djibouti, the water-distribution rdgie, the labor inspectorate, civil aviation, the post and telegraph office, the social welfare and pension funds, business medical services, and the Society Immobiliere, as well as those of Djibouti district and the hinterland cercles. Alongside the head of each government service there was posted a local-born com¬ missioner, and each minister had a European technical ad¬ viser, most of whom belonged to the corps of overseas ad¬ ministrators. The whole structure represented an important segment of the active population. Students of African affairs have speculated about the impact on the native electorate of this recently created, care¬ fully structured, and powerful administrative framework. There is no doubt but that the preference shown at this time to the Afars, combined with the expulsion of Somalis, streng¬ thened the government's authority. On the other hand, it is not certain that left-wing Europeans rejected the Paris gov¬ ernment's policy in the TFAI of supporting Premier Ali Aref. He had been in charge of territorial affairs almost uninter¬ ruptedly for nearly a decade, as well as intermittently for more than fifteen years, and the stability of his governance,

The Government Apparatus

15

despite the periodic troubles that shook the country, was quite remarkable.

The Administrative Divisions Aside from the transfer of responsibilities, the administrative structure was not upset by the 1967 statute. The TFAI re¬ tained its five administrative units—Djibouti, Tadjoura, Ali Sabieh, Dikhil, and Obock. The term cercle was retained for the subdivisions of the hinterland administration, while that of "district" was applied to Djibouti itself. As before, each unit was in the charge of a French administrator who exercised authority over the heads of the posts that made up his territory. Alongside those adminis¬ trators there continued to function, without any change in their prerogatives, the tribal chiefs, the spiritual leaders, and the assemblies of Notables, all of whom were protectors of Islamic doctrine and customary law. However, early in 1974, "urban councils" were set up in each of Djibouti's three arrondissements (wards), as well as in the four principal towns of the hinterland cercles, whose role resembled that of similar municipalities in France. They gave the popula¬ tion the opportunity to participate in matters concerning town streets, as well as those pertaining to local social, cultural, and economic problems. The District of Djibouti. The district officer of Dji¬ bouti was assisted by a local-born deputy who was a member of the territorial cadre of administrators. The duties of the district officer were somewhat reduced, from 1974 on, 2 by the transfer of responsibility for certain services to the local-born authorities. The administrative posts of Holi-Holi and Arta remained attached to the district of Djibouti. Arta, situated forty kilo¬ meters from the capital at an altitude of 750 meters, was something of a summer resort. The military posts of Damerjog and Loyada on the Franco-Somali frontier were like¬ wise attached to the Djibouti district. In recent years, the territory's population underwent fluctuations that, in the case of the capital, can be termed prodigious. Its population virtually doubled over the past decade—a development unlikely to please the authorities, for it obviously could not be attributed to an increase in the birth rate.

16

Dj ibouti

Tadjoura Cercle. The northern zone of the Gulf of Tadjoura was long isolated from Djibouti because of commu¬ nications difficulties. In 1970, however, relations were great¬ ly improved by the inauguration of a regular motorized ferry service, and in 1972 by a telephonic connection with the capi¬ tal. Tadjoura, along with Obock, was one of the territory’s secondary ports, and had barely 2, 000 inhabitants in 1967. They numbered 4, 000 in 1976, and the population of the cer¬ cle as a whole was approximately 35, 000. Tadjoura cercle, which includes the administrative post of Dorra, has a hill station at Randa, about thirty kil¬ ometers from the port at an altitude of 920 meters. As a modest center of market gardening maintained by the admin¬ istration, Randa proved its worth during the Second World War by helping to supply food to Djibouti when that town was blockaded by the English. Obock Cercle. Smaller than Tadjoura cercle, of which it was a former administrative adjunct, Obock was not desig¬ nated a cercle until September 1963. In conformity with the Africanization policy, a native of the territory was named commandant de cercle at Obock toward the end of 1975. As of 1967, the cercle's inhabitants numbered 9, 050. Dikhil Cercle. Formerly connected with the capital by a dirt track, this cercle has profited by the road-building program referred to as the "Ethiopian highway"--an old proj¬ ect that has been revived in recent years. 3 The population of its main town, which was about 1, 000 in 1967, rose to 4, 500 by 1975. The administrative posts of As-Eyla (250 inhabitants in 1967) and Yoboki (200), which are dependencies of Dikhil, have developed slightly in recent times. The cer¬ cle as a whole now has a population of about 45, 000 inhabit tants, as against 23, 000 in 1967. Ali Sabieh Cercle. Of the five administrative units, this cercle is the only one that lacks an oasis, but its im¬ portance is based on Ali Sabieh’s being the southernmost station of the Franco-Ethiopian railroad in the French zone. In 1968, the cercle of Ali Sabieh had 10, 000 inhabitants, and the town itself 2, 000 in the cool season and twice that num¬ ber in summer. This cercle comprises the administrative post of Dasbiou and the surveillance posts assigned to the Autonomous Nomad Group. Its first local-born commandant de cercle was assigned to Ali Sabieh late in 19761

The Government Apparatus

17

The hinterland commandants de cercle had substantially the same duties and responsibilities as they had had before the 1967 statute came into effect, but to each of them was assigned a deputy whose appointment was eventually to be of¬ ficially confirmed. In administrative posts, noncommissioned career officers were replaced by civil servants. A telephone system connecting the cercles with each other and with Dji¬ bouti was not installed until the years between 1973 and 1975.

The Territory's Representation in France Representation of the native population at Paris, which ex¬ isted before 1967, was maintained under the new statute. By universal suffrage, the local people elected a deputy and a senator to the French Parliament. During the referendum campaign of March 19, 1967, Moussa Idriss, an Issa who headed the Parti du Mouvement Populaire (PMP) and had been the TFAI deputy since 1962, came out against further association of the TFAI with France. In the wake of the referendum, he had the discretion, despite the temporarily relaxed atmosphere and the encouragement of his followers, to refrain from being a candidate in the legis¬ lative elections of April 23, 1967. His successor as deputy was Abdoulkader Moussa Ali, a follower of Ali Aref. Al¬ though Moussa Ali was an Afar, he performed the unusual feat of winning over many Issa voters, for the atmosphere at that time was one of reconciliation. He was reelected in June 1968 and kept his seat until March 1973, when he was succeeded by Omar Farah Iltere. As for Senator Barkad Gourat Hamadou, a leader of one of the Afar parties and a faithful supporter of Ali Aref, he held his senatorial post continuously after September 1965, following his defeat of Mohamed Kamil. Finally, the TFAI continued to name a member of the Economic and Social Council at Paris, sub¬ ject to the French government's approval. Ali Aref held that post from February 1962 until September 1974, at which time he was succeeded by Said Ali Coubeche.

Public Order and Defense The organization of internal order and defense for the terri¬ tory as a whole was like that in France. However, the po¬ lice forces, inadequately manned to cope with unusual situa-

18

Dj ibouti

tions or with internal tensions caused by events in adjoining countries, sometimes had to call on the armed forces for aid. When this occurred, some elements of the population, especially opponents of the current government, protested. Such was the case during the particularly serious strikes by dockworkers at the port of Djibouti, as well as during clashes between urban tribal groups and in politically motivated ones. Yet, during the troubles in May 1975, described below, 4 the troops were not called in except to enforce the curfew. Beginning in January 1970, the calm that had prevailed during the preceding two years was shattered by a series of violent episodes, of which several had local political and even international implications. Responsibility for the grenade at¬ tack on the Palmier en Zinc restaurant was not claimed by any of the groups opposing the territorial government. What made it a rather unusual crime was that most of its victims were Europeans; that it occurred in the center of Djibouti; and that its perpetrator, an eighteen-year-old Somali named Omar Elmi Kaireh, admitted that he had acted under orders from the Front de Liberation de la Cdte des Somalis (FLCS). Another incident, even more sensational, became the subject of a book entitled La Dame de Tadjoura. Its author was Dominique Pone hardier, a former high commissioner of the TFAI, and it described the kidnapping of Tadjoura's comman¬ dant de cercle and his wife in April 1971. They were taken as hostages by two Issas who had just escaped from prison, where they were serving sentences for the attempted assas¬ sination of the TFAI premier in 1960. The two convicts drove their prisoners in a Land Rover around the Gulf of Tadjoura, closely pursued by a government helicopter. The 200-kilometer chase ended at Loyada, a post on the frontier between Somalis and the TFAI, where the Somali authorities freed the hostages and held the two Issas, about whom nothing further was heard in Djibouti. After another relatively peaceful interlude, a new crime wave marked the years from 1973 to 1976. This took the form of apparently apolitical thefts, burglaries, and armed attacks on individuals. In TFAI towns, street brawls some¬ times involving large numbers of participants broke out. The year 1975 saw a revival of the issue of independence, which culminated in political violence. In the final months of that year, there were two armed attacks on Ali Aref, during the second of which the presidential bodyguards opened fire. That confrontation left two persons killed and three wounded. These and other sanguinary incidents impelled the high commissioner

The Government Apparatus

19

and the local authorities to resume their checking of identity cards and searching of houses for weapons, and to impose a curfew, thus marking a return to the situation prior to 1967. These searches, which continued throughout January 1976, uncovered a large cache of weapons and led to the arrest of some terrorists, as well as the expulsion of many illegal im¬ migrants across the Somali frontier. The climax to this worsening state of affairs came in February 1976 with the collective kidnapping of schoolchildren, an episode that became known as ’’the drama of Loyada. " A commando comprising four members of the FLCS seized a school bus near the airbase, which was carrying thirty-one children six to twelve years old, as well as the driver. Tak¬ ing the road to Somalia, they were stopped at Loyada, a few meters from the frontier, by a barricade of military trucks. The kidnappers' demands included abandoning the referendum projected by the French government, granting immediate inde¬ pendence to the TFAI, and freeing all political prisoners. Negotiations began on the spot, with the participation of High Commissioner Christian Dablanc, the ranking military com¬ mander, and the Somali consul general. Members of the commando gave no ground, and they threatened to kill the children. The following day, gendarmes who had arrived from France during the night, and who were expert marks¬ men, killed the terrorists, but not before the latter had killed one small girl with a burst of gunfire and wounded five other children. While this was going on, shots were exchanged between those laying siege to the bus and Somali police just across the frontier. Several French soldiers were wounded, as were an unknown number of Somalis. The Loyada drama gave rise to various statements. In official circles at Paris, it was announced that order would be maintained and the safety..of the inhabitants ensured pend¬ ing a decision as to the future of the territory. In fact, four military planes took off from Orly airport the day after the incident, with 800 men on board. Jean Gueury, French am¬ bassador at Mogadiscio, was recalled to Paris. Metropolitan newspapers of both the left and the right denounced the actions of the commando. Through its ambassador in France, the Somali republic expressed at one and the same time regret for the commando's violence and uneasiness over the obsti¬ nacy of France in regard to its local policy, and also com¬ plained about the "provocative" shots fired at the Somali frontier-post forces. The LPAI condemned the atrocities committed at Loyada and elsewhere, but the FLCS asserted

20

Dj ibouti

that they should be interpreted as the strong reaction of an oppressed people, notably on the part of desperate individuals who had been expelled from Balbala village. 5 France at once lodged a complaint with the UN Security Council, as did the Somali republic. In principle, maintaining public order was the respon¬ sibility of the gendarmerie and the territorial guard. The former was under the authority of the high commissioner until 1974, when it was transferred to the premier. 6 How¬ ever, the high commissioner was still empowered to resume that authority in the event of serious disorders that might en¬ danger the security of the territory, and this occurred during the troubled periods of December 1975, February 1976, and May 1976. 7 The territorial guard, as reorganized in May 1969, included a presidential bodyguard, a unit for Djibouti district, and squads stationed in the five administrative centers, as well as the port police. The officers of the territorial guard were members of the Metropolitan Compagnies R^publicaines de S^curitd (CRS), and beginning in November 1974 it was placed under the orders of the prime minister. The former Stiret^ Nationale (national security police), composed of civil¬ ian appointees and responsible to the high commissioner, be¬ came the state police. As regards the organization of the territory's defense forces, there existed not only two units that operated mainly in the towns but also a long-established force concerned prin¬ cipally with keeping order in the hinterland. Its organization was not altered by the 1967 statute, but its former name of militia was replaced in 1970 by that of Groupe Nomade Autonome (GNA). In addition to its command post in Djibouti, GNA units were scattered throughout the territory. The total permanent complement of the gendarmerie, the territorial guard, and the GNA consisted of about 500 men in 1975. It was temporarily reinforced during the local outbreaks in May of that year by the arrival of some 300 Mobile Guards. The duties of the GNA were the same as those assigned to the militia in the early days of the territory. The military forces in the TFAI were strengthened after the visit to Djibouti of the minister of defense, Jacques Soufflet, in July 1974, the army receiving new armored cars, trucks, radio-equipped vehicles, and ammunition. Some peri¬ odicals in France claimed that launching pads for ground-sea

The Government Apparatus

21

missiles had been installed, but no one in Djibouti could con¬ firm this. Probably, the Israeli and Russian secret services knew more about the TFAl's defenses than the average French¬ man in the TFAI. In any case, there was no great mystery about the existence of buried reserves of fuel. The armed forces’ total strength fluctuated, depending upon events: they comprised 3, 650 men in 1966, 9, 000 in 1975, and 3, 500 at the beginning of 1976—these obviously be¬ ing approximate figures. The ground forces consisted of European and native soldiers and no longer included any of the legendary "Senegalese" who had been their backbone be¬ fore the Second World War. In view of the territory's area, these forces were far from constituting a threat to neighboring countries. The ar¬ my was there to stand guard in case of danger, and it adhered strictly to that task. The Foreign Legion itself comprised about a thousand men, divided into companies assigned to several posts in the country, the largest number being on the outskirts of Djibouti. During the exceptionally troubled period in 1966, the use of some Legionnaires in maintaining order made a bad impression on the local population and on public opinion abroad. Subsequently, the army was no longer used for police operations, so that during the outbreaks in May 1975 the authorities preferred to reinforce the local gendarmerie by sending for men from the CRS, who were normally stationed in France. When sporadic events that might involve neighboring countries occurred, both the Legion and the army were called upon to help out. This was the case, for example, during the Loyada incident. The air force was equipped with about sixty aircrafts, and in 1976 its personnel numbered 900. The events in Ethiopia that culminated in the over¬ throw of Haile Selassie in September 1974 warranted taking some additional precautions, and reinforced naval units pa¬ trolled the Gulf of Aden for almost three months. Early in 1976, the naval forces were sent on a three-month mission in the Indian Ocean. In short, surveillance by the French navy was on a permanent basis to the east of the African coast. It is difficult to state precisely the global strength of the troops stationed in the territory. The press has given out the most fanciful figures, such as 9, 500 men—a figure that approximated the total number of troops and their families.

22

Dj ibouti

A more reasonable estimate of personnel strength at the be¬ ginning of 1976 would be 6, 000 men in the three branches of the armed services—the gendarmerie, the territorial guard, and the GNA. The proportion of local-born in that total was only about 10 percent. The permanent garrison could be re¬ inforced at any moment by gendarmes, as we have already noted, as well as by parachutists and additional planes. The concern of the Paris government with the defense of the territory was shown by the increasingly frequent visits to Djibouti by high-ranking military officers and officials from mid-1974 to 1975. The next year, Raymond Dronne, presi¬ dent of the national-defense committee in the National Assem¬ bly, was sent on a mission concerning the problems of the armed forces in the TFAI. As for the defense of the terri¬ tory as a whole, this was the responsibility of the high com¬ missioner, and its budget was wholly subsidized by the French state. The administration of justice received special attention on the part of the French authorities in the TFAI, where it had to deal from the outset with questions that arose because Europeans and Africans lived side by side. Inasmuch as the latter did not turn to the former to settle their disputes, which were numerous and complex, but relied on customary law, it was literally impossible not to take traditional prac¬ tices into consideration. The coexistence of Western usages and local traditions rarely created clear-cut situations, but eventually time and the population's evolution smoothed over the difficulties. Time-honored harsh constraints, collective or individual, that existed mainly among the hinterland tribes and resembled vendettas, became rare. After the Sharia (Islamic law) courts were set up, Muslim justice was progressively modified to the point where it was no longer strik¬ ingly incompatible with French justice. Eventually, a com¬ promise between Islamic law, local custom, and French ju¬ risprudence was reached. The Sharia courts were concerned particularly with administrative litigation and the civil regis¬ ter. In conformity with customary law and in agreement with the commandants de cercle, the assemblies of Notables dealt with disputes and thefts between tribesmen. And French justice, in cases involving violations of the criminal code, intervened regardless of the contestants' status. The French judicial system in the TFAI was a simplified version of that prevailing in the Metropole, and it was headed by the public prosecutor of the republic. Djibouti was the seat of a con¬ ciliation or police court, a court of the first instance, and a court of appeals that could function as a criminal court.

The Government Apparatus

23

Notes 1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

This economy coincided with the closure of the Suez Canal beginning in June 1967, which drastically reduced the port's activity and consequently the territory's reve¬ nues, and also with the increased cost of living due to the need to import many fresh foodstuffs by plane. See pages 20, 35. See pages 33, 47. See page 18. See page 86. See pages 15, 35. See pages 8, 39, 42.

.

-

3.

THE INTERNAL POLICY OF THE TERRITORY

Even prior to the statute of July 1967, the population of the territory participated actively in its political life. That par¬ ticipation was marked by the polemical vehemence of the var¬ ious political movements; the volte-face of prominent politi¬ cians; the electoral disputes and social conflicts; the compla¬ cent attitude toward foreign demands from outside the coun¬ try, which characterized the years between 1949 and 1958; and finally the crisis of 1967. Although the referendum of March 19, 1967, favored France's continued presence, it brought no permanent solution to the territory's unresolved problems in regard to internal politics and relations with neighboring countries.

RESULTS OF THE REFERENDUM OF MARCH 19,

Cercle

Registered Voters

Ali Sabieh Dikhil Dj ibouti Obock Tadjoura

4, 9, 11, 4, 9, 39,

876 765 068 481 121 312

Void Ballots

Actual Voters

25 12 44 30 0

4, 765 9, 569 9, 714 4, 303 8,981 37, 332

m

(94. 96%)

25

1967

Affirmative Votes

Negative Votes

93 6, 457 2, 817 4, 220 8, 968 227555

4, 647 3,100 6, 853 53 13 14, 666

(60. 60%)

(39. 40%)

26

Dj ibouti

Despite some unsatisfactory aspects, the plebiscite organized by General de Gaulle had at least the virtue of sparing the country a civil war and perhaps an even broader confrontation. Furthermore, it left the door open to a range of political options that could prove useful in the future, and it probably served to appease some concerned outsiders, no¬ tably the peoples of Ethiopia and of the independent republic of Somalia, who tried to deceive world opinion as to the meaning of the referendum and at the same time to avoid disavowing their previous positions. It also propitiated the great powers, which considered that the situation in the Far and Near East was already too unstable. The government council elected on July 7, 1967, in application of the territory's new statute was headed by Ali Aref Bourhan. His cabinet consisted of Chehem Daoud Chehem (minister of health), Omar Mohamed Kamil (education), Ah¬ med Dini Ahmed (interior), and Hassan Mohamed Moyale (production). There were also two Issas, Mohamed Ali Chirdon (civil service) and Djama Ali Bakal (information and tour¬ ism); one European, Julien Vetillard (finance); and an Arab, Mohamed Othman Youssouf (labor). As for the Chamber of Deputies, whose mandate dated from the elections of Novem¬ ber 17, 1963, the only change was in its name. Of its thirtytwo members, sixteen were Afars, eleven Somalis (eight Is¬ sas and three naturalized French Somalis), four Europeans, and one Arab. Some time had to pass after the political storm had subsided before calm could be restored among the assemblymen as well as the population. Immediately after the new cabinet was formed, the old ethnic antagonisms once again came to the fore. As victors in the March 19 referendum, the Afars intended to take a large slice of the pie in every domain. Vicissitudes marked the second half of 1967 and the first half of 1968,1 when the bitter residue of 1966 erupted in a settling of old accounts. Consequently, there were new arrests and the dissolution of the Parti du Mouvement Populaire (PMP), the strong organization created mainly by youth¬ ful elements and backed by the Somali Democratic Republic. Although some PMP leaders, notably Egue Bourali and Mo¬ hamed Ahmed Issa (known as Checko), who had several times been arrested and then liberated, were acquitted in September 1967, other demonstrators of 1966 were severely punished, the penalties even extending in certain cases to the death sentence for threatening the security of the state. This was the case, for example, of Omar Osman Rabeh and Omar

The Internal Policy

27

Elmi Kai'reh who, however, had been pardoned in France by the president of the republic. These two men were again to surface in connection with the kidnapping of the French ambassador at Mogadiscio. 2 Despite the clemency shown toward those considered the least guilty, the aim of this being to restore calm to the territory, the opposition disapproved of the policy pursued by the government. Hassan Gouled wanted the deputy prime minister of the TFAI to be chosen from an ethnic group other than that of the premier, and the Chamber of Deputies to be elected by proportional representation. He threatened to boy¬ cott the next legislative elections and, as spokesman for his followers, he stated that "contrary to our own wishes we shall be forced to turn to a foreign country. "3 Unfortunately, the moderate stand of Hassan Gouled was distorted by profession¬ al agitators so as to justify acts of violence. Somewhat marginal to the extremist organizations, there had existed since 1963 a Union Ddmocratique Issa (UDI), headed by Omar Farah Iltere, who was one of the few mem¬ bers of his ethnic group to campaign in favor of an affirma¬ tive vote in the 1967 referendum. During 1968, the UDI president decided to give his party a new orientation and at the same time to maintain its basic policy--that is, support of France's continued presence in the territory. He renewed his expression of confidence in the new institutions created as a result of the plebiscite, as well as in the individuals now running the government. Moreover, he proposed a col¬ laboration between Issas and Afars, and assured the premier that he was ready to do his part in moving the territory out of its impasse, which he attributed to the "myths and lies spread by a minority of agitators. That agitators continued to be active was shown short¬ ly thereafter by the throwing of a hand grenade into a house where Omar Farah Iltere was conferring with his deputy in the UDI and the minister of information, Djama Ali Bakal. Among others also gathered there, one person was killed and five were injured. Nevertheless, the stand taken by the UDI president gave needed support to Ali Aref and also led to a brilliant political career for himself. At the same time, Ali Aref reached an understanding with Ahmed Dini, who was act¬ ing premier during the prime minister's absences and who assured General de Gaulle that the population was "irrevocably committed to republican institutions.

28

Dj ibouti

After the French National Assembly was dissolved in 1968, the election of a deputy to represent the TFAI in Paris was held in the territory on June 23, and it took place with¬ out incident. Abdoulkader Moussa Ali, a native of Obock and a follower of Ali Aref, was easily reelected, winning 70 per¬ cent of the votes cast. He ran against Mohamed Ahmed Issa, also from Obock but a militant member of the opposition and an advocate of independence for the TFAI. Abdoulkader's reelection ensured that the Afar viewpoint would continue to be represented in the French Parliament. Once again, as in April 1967, he defeated his closest Issa rival, Idriss Farah Abane, who was a moderate and a member of the PMP. Either through political skill or by luck at the polls, the reelection of an Afar from the Batoitamela tribe gave Premier Aref the solid support of the people of a cercle that had not always been favorable to him. It was Abdoulkader Moussa Ali who introduced in the National Assembly a proposed law to revise the electoral circumscriptions and the allocation of seats, which was adopted on October 24, 1968. 6 A few months after the June 23, 1968 election, an important political event occurred in the TFAI. On November 17, a new local thirty-two-member assembly was elected in accordance with the territory's new statute. The list of can¬ didates sponsored by Premier Aref won 68 percent of the votes cast and comprised nineteen former assemblymen and eleven newcomers. After the election results were announced, Ali Aref did not conceal his satisfaction, but he renewed his pledge to collaborate with the various tribes and factions so as to promote the well-being and prosperity of the territory. Suit¬ ing his action to the word, he formed a new cabinet with five Afars, among whom were his sporadic adversary, Ahmed Dini; three Issas; and one European. Along with the premier¬ ship, Ali Aref kept the ministry of public works and the port and assigned the interior portfolio to Ahmed Dini. Premier Arefs statements and appointments were made at the right time and were calculated to calm the territory's turbulent youth. The country's peaceful future would depend on the local people's reaching an understanding, with or with¬ out France's collaboration. Despite economic difficulties and the unemployment due to the port's inactivity, the year 1968 witnessed the execution of an important public-works program, an improvement in the health services, a fairly satisfactory development of the state electricity (which was faced with

The Internal Policy

29

increasing demand for current), the drafting of new labor laws, and finally an extension of the pension system to cover all the territorial civil servants. As regards French officials, High Commissioner Saget ended his tour of duty in a tranquil atmosphere, after having lived through the troublesome 1966-67 period. In March 1969, he was succeeded by Dominique Ponchardier, a former companion of General de Gaulle, whose personal experiences had imbued him with a philosophy that, however, did not pre¬ vent his taking the bull by the horns on occasion. During his incumbency, the Paris government seemed eager to test the atmosphere in the territory with a view possibly to revising its financial-aid program. In April 1969, Paris sent out to Djibouti the secretary of state for the DOM/TOM, Inchauspe, who stressed the need for a dialogue between the majority and the opposition as a prerequisite for a fuller development of the territory. His successor, Henry Rey, was also warm¬ ly welcomed by members of the majority party as well as by those of Omar Farah Iltere's UDI and Hassan Gouled's Union Populaire Africaine (UPA). In the TFAI, the outcome of the important referendum of April 27, 1969, on regionalization and reorganization of the French Senate differed markedly from that in France. The territorial participation in the vote was heavy (90 per¬ cent) and the percentage of affirmative votes was 97. 25 per¬ cent. In France, the electorate's rejection of the proposal led to General de Gaulle's retirement, whereas in Djibouti the premier reaffirmed his loyalty to Gaullism and High Com¬ missioner Ponchardier declared that "France stays on, and consequently for the territory nothing is changed. So the country moved toward new presidential elections on June 7, 1969, and as usual the preparatory electoral campaign was marred by violence. The railroad line, its Djibouti station, and the Ethiopian consulate were bombed. These retaliatory incidents, whose authorship was claimed by the Front de Lib¬ eration de l'Erythrde, seemed aimed primarily at the TFAl's neighbors, but the fact that they occurred on French territory suggested that they might also be a warning to France, which was shipping military equipment by way of Addis Ababa. In any case, Djibouti's political leaders chose their candidate for the presidency of the republic. Raymond Pecoul, former finance minister, formed a committee to support Alain Poher, whereas Ali Aref preferred Georges Pompidou as the man to conciliate opposing factions. The final vote

30

Dj ibouti

gave Pompidou 84. 77 percent and Poher 15. 13 percent, with a participation of 84. 83 percent of the registered electorate. A month later, Ali Aref was named by decree to mem¬ bership in the Economic and Social Council, in Paris. De¬ spite shortages and a slowing down of the economy, as well as the high cost of living, the political situation, which had been calm during the second half of 1968, continued to be so throughout the next two years. In March 1971, -the replacement of Ahmed Dini as minister of the interior by Mohamed Kamil is noteworthy. The latter, politically active since 1955 and defeated in the elections of November 1968, had always opposed Ali Aref's policies except when both men advocated an affirmative vote in the 1967 referendum. This appointment reflected Ali Aref's desire to unify the country politically, but it also highlighted the erratic political career of Ahmed Dini. Dini had got off to an early and fast start, at the age of twentysix. The next year, he became vice-president of the gov¬ ernment council, but in 1960 had to yield that post to Ali Aref. Three years later, he had become not only a member of Aref's party but an assemblyman and a cabinet minister. Although by 1964 he had left the government party, he did not oppose an affirmative vote by the TFAI in the 1967 refer¬ endum. From then on, Dini was in and out of the Aref gov¬ ernment until 1971, when the break between the two men was made final by Dini's founding an opposition Afar party, the Ligue pour l'Avenir et l’Ordre (LAO). This, in turn, led to a rupture between the two Afar families headed respectively by Dini and Aref. Other opposition parties of this period were the Rassemblement du Peuple Issa (RPI), led by Idriss Issa; the moderate and somewhat marginal Action pour la Justice et le Prog res (AJP), headed by Moumin Bahoon; and the Union Populaire Africaine (UPA), formed by Hassan Gouled from among Somali secessionists whose Parti du Mouvement Popu¬ laire had been dissolved in 1968. Early in 1972, the rap¬ prochement between the LAO and the UPA materialized in an organization called the Ligue Populaire Africaine (LPA). Generally speaking, Ahmed Dini and Hassan Gouled opposed Ali Aref on the grounds that he was unrepresentative of TFAI opinion other than that of his own party, showed partiality and favoritism in his appointments, and was profligate with public funds. Debate, they claimed, was no longer possible in the Chamber, where more than four-fifths of the deputies

The Internal Policy

31

were Aref's partisans who owed their seats to fraudulent elections. However, Aref's most serious fault in their eyes was that he had the backing of the French government. De¬ spite their common opposition to the majority party, it is noteworthy that between 1970 and 1974, the Issas soft-pedaled the theme of independence. In the TFAI, the gap between the opposition and the majority party widened. The former, now convinced that it could never enter into any discussions with the latter that it considered would be beneficial to the territory's interests, sent a delegation to Paris, but its members' hope that they would be accorded an interview with the president of the re¬ public was dashed. Moreover, at the same time, Ali Aref was promoted to the rank of officer of the Legion of Honor at a ceremony in the Elysde Palace at which his old rival, Mohamed Kamil, was present. Toward the end of 1972, the cabinet, with a view to offsetting the opposition's propaganda, proposed that the popu¬ lation be given wider representation. The Chamber readily acquiesced in this, especially because it would augment the representation of the rural areas, for the majority was aware that, by and large, the threat to its preeminence came from Djibouti. The French Parliament had to approve this change, and to win its consent laborious negotiations were undertaken. After two rejections, the Senate finally endorsed the proposal between Christmas and New Year's day, following its approval by a parliamentary commission. In January 1973, there occurred an important event for the TFAI that was desired and yet feared by both its African and its French residents, and by the general public as well as the authorities. This was the visit to Djibouti by Presi¬ dent Pompidou, which brought to mind the tumultuous events that had marred the passage of General de Gaulle in 1966. President Pompidou arrived late in the afternoon of January 15. After an official reception at the airport, the procession, protected by exceptionally strong security forces, took the usual five-kilometer itinerary that passed through the African village separating the airport from the center of the city. This was the same route that General de Gaulle had taken and where he had been greeted by banners acclaiming him as well as by hostile slogans. Now, a little more than six years later, Pompidou encountered cheers and applause, for apparently the opposition had ordered its supporters to re¬ main at home. It is hard to estimate just how effective that

32

Djibouti

order had been, but it was perhaps most evident in the con¬ spicuous absence of Somalis. The first talks with the territory's representatives concerned subjects of general interest and proposals designed to increase the TFAI's economic and cultural potential. The next day was more important because Ali Aref was counting heavily on Pompidou's public expression of approval of the main lines of his policy. Public ceremonies in the early morning included a military parade and the usual presenta¬ tion of official bodies, .and the program then called for a speech at the high commissioner's palace, a tour of the town, and a reception at the Chamber of Deputies. In his address to the officials, prominent guests, and veterans, Georges Pompidou developed several themes: maintaining the TFAI inside the French Republic, in conformity with the will of its population as expressed on several occasions; the manner in which the territory's autonomy could be made to evolve for the people's benefit; France's guarantee of the TFAI's territorial integrity; the means by which France proposed to develop the territory in different domains; the need to avoid an influx of foreign labor beyond the country's capacity to absorb; and finally the conditions indispensable for reaching an understanding between the indigenous elements. On the most crucial issue, there was no possible ambiguity about the president's statement that "the republic in my person pledges to you its firm resolve to remain here and to provide you with its assistance. "8 The tour of the town began with the Plateau du Ser¬ pent and the port and continued through the African quarter, where the welcome was far warmer than it had been on the day before. The Issas, even in their own bastion, were not among the least expansive. This change in attitude gave rise to diverse explanations: some believed that the opposition leaders had called off their boycott as a result of President Pompidou's willingness to listen to their views; others, that the proponents of independence had noted the show of strength made by the security forces, or that curiosity or the conta¬ gion of their neighbors' enthusiasm had won out over their leaders' directives. However, it could also be argued that the opposition had become less intransigent than it was in 1966, or that the change was the result of the exiling of those who had been the main agitators of that period, or finally that it was a spontaneous reaction on the part of a population now better informed about the political issues at stake.

The Internal Policy

33

The afternoon of January 16, 1973, was devoted to the Chamber's reception. In his welcoming speech, Ali Aref recalled his attachment to France and his desire that the Metropole should continue to help the territory make progress. President Pompidou spoke of the TFAl's needs, of ways to complete the works in progress, and of the means to finance them. In this context, he stated once again that France had no intention of curtailing its aid, provided that the local in¬ habitants, for their part, also gave proof of goodwill. Most of the major projects he cited were not new, but were chron¬ ic concerns of the authorities, such as the water supply, schools, the port, and development of the economy along lines that might seem new but that in reality had only been relegated to the background for twenty years because of lack of funds. Among such projects were the famous road planned to link Djibouti to the Assab-Addis Ababa highway, the de¬ velopment of subterranean sources of energy, and the cleaning up of the magala. The visit of the French head of state to the TFAI was undeniably a success. On the morning of January 17, he flew to Addis Ababa, where he was given a lavish reception and remained for two days. The TFAI premier, too, could feel gratified by the Pompidou visit. This was not, however, the first time that the French government had shown him es¬ teem. Despite some attacks, which it must be said were in¬ frequent, Ali Aref was at that period solidly entrenched as head of his country. His most implacable enemies were in Mogadiscio, where, for the time being at least, they seemed no longer to be enjoying the backing of that government as they had in the days of Aden Abdulla Osman, the first presi¬ dent of the Somali republic. Moreover, when the OAU pro¬ tested against the French presence in the TFAI, Ali Aref received unconditional support from Georges Pompidou, as well as the French president's assurance that he did "not recognize the right of anyone except the locally elected lead¬ ers to speak in the name of the territory. "9 It was in an untroubled atmosphere that elections were held in March 1973 to fill the post of the TFAl's deputy in the Paris Parliament, and in the following November for seats in the local Chamber of Deputies. The outcome of the March balloting brought no surprises. With the participation of 79 percent of the electorate, Omar Farah Iltere, minister of the civil service, was chosen to succeed Abdoulkader Moussa Ali by 26, 190 votes to 8,122 for Ibrahim Harbi Far¬ ah. The civil-service portfolio was taken over by Mohamed Djama Elabe.

34

Dj ibouti

The territorial-assembly election of November 18, 1973, was the first held in application of the law of Decem¬ ber 29, 1972, that had increased the number of deputies from thirty-two to forty and that of cabinet ministers from six to eight or nine. For the TFAI as a whole, there were seventyeight candidates divided among fourteen party slates. Espe¬ cially in Djibouti, the number of candidates opposed to, or at least not aligned with, Ali Aref was noteworthy. In Djibouti, there was one seat per 1, 288 electors to fill, and in the rural zone, one per 1, 128 electors. In contrast to the November 1968 elections, the economic importance of Djibouti was now down¬ graded and the voting strength of the hinterland was enhanced. The opposition failed to win a single seat, even in Ali Sabieh. Altogether, 26, 855 votes (75 percent of the electorrate) gave Ali Aref control of the forty seats in the Chamber of Deputies. This spelled a complete triumph for the Afars, inasmuch as the other candidates altogether received only 8, 536 votes. 10 Thirteen deputies from the previous Chamber were reelected, and twenty-seven of them were newcomers. The cabinet, which numbered thirteen including its head, was formed on November 23. Aside from Omar Mohamed Kamil, Hassan Mohamed Moyale, and Chehem Daoud Chehem, who kept the portfolios they had held since 1968, all the ministers were new to the cabinet. The disappearance of Abdi Dembil Egal from the government should be noted. The opposition leaders contested the election results, both for the post of deputy in Paris and for the local Cham¬ ber. The Conseil Constitutionnel validated the mandate of Omar Farah Iltere, and the Conseil de Contentieux Administratif did the same for the deputies elected, except those from Djibouti's second circumscription. This vote was re¬ ferred to the Conseil d'Etat, which announced its decision the next year, confirming that of the Conseil de Contentieux. During that long interval, the deputies continued to take part normally in local political life. The death of President Pompidou in April 1974 led to the presidential election of May 12, which took place calmly in the TFAI. The size of the electorate had again increased compared with that of five years earlier (49, 027 as against 47, 576), and 70. 83 percent of them voted. In the final vote on May 19, when 71. 92 percent of the electorate went to the polls, Giscard d'Estaing received 77.12 percent and Mitterand 22. 88 percent of the votes.

The Internal Policy

35

In all the excitement engendered by the elections, there reappeared covertly in Djibouti during 1974 the ghost of a dream that had almost been forgotten in the past few years. The word independence was revived in party slogans, at least in those of the opposition. From the outside world were heard the voices of official spokesmen of Senegal, Niger, and Togo, who openly favored independence for Djibouti. The old LPA, which had been formed in 1972 out of a meeting of the forces opposing Ali Aref, merged in February 1975 with the AJP, thus constituting an organization that took the name of Ligue Populaire Africaine pour l'Inddpendance (LPAI). Aside from the RPI, all the other ethnic groups were placed under the aegis of a single party; the opposition marshaled its scattered battalions, while on the side of the majority there was taking place a decentralization of authority in ap¬ plication of the law of July 3, 1967. Thus, there occurred in December 1974 a debate in the Chamber of Deputies that resulted in their unanimous approval of a draft law under whose provisions the assembly gave itself full powers to de¬ cide on how it should be reconstituted following the expira¬ tion of its five-year mandate, the size of its membership, the allocation of seats from circumscriptions whose location it would also determine, what should be required of candi¬ dates for election as deputies, the conditions for passing a vote of no-confidence in the government, and the like. Such were the main points of the project that was later approved by the French Parliament. During the discussion of this draft in Paris between Ali Aref and President Giscard d'Estaing three weeks before its passage, the former seized the opportunity to sign several agreements with the secretary of state for the DOM/TOM. They gave the head of the TFAI control over the personnel who administered the territory but whose salaries were paid by France. This represented an important increase in Ali Aref's powers, inasmuch as those bureaucrats had previously been dependent on the high commissioner. Moreover, this transfer of authority to the head of the territorial govern¬ ment included the labor inspectorate and the police, except those patrolling the territory from the air. (Since June 1974, the staff handling technical aid had been placed under the territorial authorities. ) However, it was stipulated that in case of serious trouble, the high commissioner could re¬ sume control of all the police forces.

36

Djibouti

Electoral Districts and Allocation of Seats in the Chamber of Deputies The French government has often been reproached with manip¬ ulating the situation to suit its interests at any given time. It would of course be most unlikely that France should take any action contrary to its own interests, especially at those periods when the TFAI held a special value for it, but the truth or falseness of such accusations could be established only if one were privy to ministerial secrets. It should not be overlooked that the electoral procedures were discussed and often proposed by the party leaders themselves as well as by local politicians. Owing to the ethnic predominance of the Somali Issas in Djibouti and Ali Sabieh, and doubtless also to the Afar nomads' apathy toward performing their civic "duty, " the former received favored treatment when electoral districts were delimited prior to 1960. A study of the legislative elections alone shows that before 1960 the number of voters was largest in the capital (66 percent), but that subsequently the situation was reversed. In 1963, the hinterland accounted for 63 percent of the electorate, in 1968 for 67 percent, and in 1973 for 62 percent, thus giving the Afars the upper hand politically despite the rapid growth in Djibouti's population. Those electors who felt disadvantaged as a result of this shift in voter strength blamed it on the French government because the latter naturally favored the Afars, who supported the status quo, as against the Issas, who tended to be seces¬ sionists.

The Elections The actual voting was almost always supervised by a Euro¬ pean, his aides, and representatives of the different political parties. It was therefore difficult, if not impossible, to avoid an authentication of an elector's card at the polling booth, where it was checked against the list of registered voters, or to slip several ballots into the ballot box, or to falsify the count that was made under the vigilant eyes of rival party militants. Rather, the parties often criticized each other as regards the pressure exercised on the elector¬ ate by the leaders and their followers and as to the facilities given to certain tribes in getting them to the polling booths, thanks to organized transport in official or private vehicles. Criticism at times also was prompted by a voter who cast

The Internal Policy

37

a ballot not only for himself but for those unable to get to the polls, or by the influence of tribal chiefs who distributed voter registration cards to those living in the hinterland, or by the administration's pressure on the salaried okal (Afar Notables) who themselves could influence their candidates' behavior thanks to tribal discipline, or by the intimidating effect of pickets stationed at the entrance to the polling booths. Philippe Qberlb claims to have seen during one elec¬ tion a voter being handed "an envelope containing a prepared ballot that he was able to slip into the ballot box without even entering the curtained polling booth. For the elections of March 1971, the opposition parties concentrated their objec¬ tions in advance on such questionable practices as voters' being able to cast several votes by going from one polling place to another, the partisanship of the polling -place super¬ visors, the installing of road barricades, the absenteeism of commandants de cercle, the writing of official reports in pencil so as to facilitate subsequent alterations, and other such irregularities.

Naturalization Comments made by Hassan Gouled and Ahmed Dini on the futility of holding elections at all deserve consideration. 12 They ascribed that futility to the limitations placed on the distribution of identity cards and to the infraction of the principle of universal suffrage as a result of the prolifera¬ tion of laws relating to nationality. They further maintained that by those means the scales were weighted on the side of the majority party and in favor of "right-thinking" candidates whose interests conformed with those of the administration. In recognizing French citizenship as the prerequisite to voting rights, the African authorities were simply observ¬ ing the law. If in this respect the opposition was wrong in violently attacking individuals, it did have valid arguments in its criticism of the nationality code. Indeed that code had become a problem that because of its fluctuations displayed a persistent illogicality. One could well believe that its com¬ plexity might in the long run preclude an equitable solution and the compilation of voter registers immune to criticism. The weakness of the regulations can be traced to the following causes: --Their multiplicity (laws of 1932 and May 7, 1946; decrees of February 24, 1953; laws of July 8, 1963, and

38

Dj ibouti

June 2, 1972), which prompted Hassan Gouled to remark that there were "as many laws as there had been elections. " --The secrecy that often surrounded census taking. For example, one of the most complete censuses, that taken by the Magendie mission, was not made public for nearly four years. —The unlikely disparity between the number of regis¬ tered voters and the size of the total population. For the last elections in 1975, the proportion was 24 percent, as against 60 percent in France. This was notably true of the elections held since 1967, when the Afars, who constituted only 38 percent of the total population, formed a majority of the electorate. --The incomplete record of vital statistics as regards the inhabitants' genealogy, the situation of nomads whose pre¬ ferred habitat had to be taken into consideration, the status of foreign spouses married according to customary law to French citizens, and the substitution of obliging witnesses in those instances where birth certificates were unavailable. --The lack of any firm principle in attributing a na¬ tionality to the seminomads who, an analysis would show, formed the basic population of the territory when the French occupied it in 1884. Their descendants could be considered French on the basis of the original occupation of the area. Until July 1976, all persons born in the territory be¬ fore 1942 were refused French nationality unless at least one of their parents was a French citizen. This dual re¬ quirement as regards time and civil status led to the same family having children of different nationalities. The confu¬ sion thus engendered resulted early in 1973 in the recognition as French citizens of 115,000 out of 170,000 persons, where¬ as only about 50, 000 of them could produce documentary proof of that status. Revision of the famous article 161 of the law of July 8, 1963, which was the cause of the situation just described, had been rejected by the local assembly, but it was accepted, in principle, in the Paris agreements of June 8, 1976. The opposition thought that revision of the law would be beneficial to the Issas and thereby reinforce their influence. The agreements signed by the French government and the various delegations from the TFAI included simply the following pro¬ vision: "Only those persons born in the territory and of lo¬ cal origin are authorized to vote in its elections. " The draft law approved by the French government for submission to the Parliament was not wholly satisfactory to the opposition, but

The Internal Policy

39

finally it was approved in record time just before the end of the parliamentary session, signed on July 19, 1976, and pro¬ mulgated in the TFAI five weeks later. This law rescinded article 161 of the nationality code and provided that French citizenship would be granted to the following persons: --Adults who were at least eighteen years old at the time the law was promulgated, who had been born in the TFAI after July 31, 1942, and one of whose parents had been born in French territory. If candidates were unable to fulfill the last-mentioned condition, they would have to provide doc¬ umentary proof that they had lived in French territory for at least five years before reaching their majority. —Minors over fifteen years of age who could prove that they themselves and one of their parents had been born in French territory, or who, having been born in French territory but of foreign parentage, could prove that Jieir normal residence was in French territory. *3 Three years of residence was the minimal time allowed before the date of the elections. In passing, it should be noted that this law did not discriminate between European and native-born voters. Con¬ sequently, if the question posed in the referendum were, as expected, to be the choice between independence and integra¬ tion into the French community, 14 it could be easily antici¬ pated how the Metropolitan French would vote, and this would provide grounds for criticism at length of their right to participate in a vote that had nothing in common with previ¬ ous elections. Undoubtedly, the French government was aware of the inconsistency but probably did not want to take the risk of committing an injustice by eliminating from the list of registered voters a very small fraction of the legiti¬ mate electorate, who, after all, were a negligible factor in the outcome. Some snags were encountered in making additional legal decisions and distributing identity cards during the sec¬ ond half of 1976—there were some disorders as well as damage to polling booths in certain districts of Djibouti, and two persons were injured in Ali Sabieh. Because the number of plaintiffs was so large, and in order to obviate adminis¬ trative difficulties for them, the authorities had to enforce discipline at the polling booths and simplify the distribution of cards, which was eventually speeded up and handled in a fairly generous spirit. The data gathered by Magendie, long pigeon-holed as already mentioned, were dusted off and con¬ stituted a basic element in examining the credentials of can-

40

Djibouti

didates for French nationality. In the hinterland, Hassan Gouled campaigned to explain to rural inhabitants the mech¬ anism of voter-card distribution. Altogether about 10, 000 cards were distributed by the end of November 1976, at the rate of nearly 400 per day.

The Censuses Censuses in the TFAI were closely linked with the question of nationality, and in themselves they deserve a few minutes' attention. As bases for voter registration, it is well known that they contain errors despite the care and competence of the census takers. With the increase in the number of elec¬ tions and the growth in the electorate as well as in the popu¬ lation's awareness of its civic duties, both censuses and the updating of voter registers required a great deal of work on the part of government employees. It was a thankless task, yet important in that it was the key to solving many prob¬ lems. If, in some instances, the criteria used were open to objection, it would be hard to deny the conscientiousness with which this work was carried out, or to accuse the ad¬ ministrative staff of showing partiality to any given tribe. Perhaps once again the law might be blamed but not those who had to cope with the difficult local realities. Certain unavoidable defects have been harped upon by the parties de¬ feated in the elections, and this tactic has been used in turn by all the political parties, without exception. In an African country, it is not easy to undertake a census of a population that is partly nomadic in the rural areas, unstable or clandestine in the towns, but to disentangle the nationals from the foreigners requires the patience of a saint. Such was the task of General Magendie in the TFAI. A limited knowledge of the conclusions of his mission could be gained only from some excerpts printed in specialized French periodicals. In consequence, highly disparate figures resulted from the fragmentation of the information available. If one takes into consideration only the electorate (French subjects), the ethnic percentages vary with the source of information. According to the 1967 census, of the 39, 024 registered voters, 59 percent were Afars, 37 percent Somali Issas, and 4 percent "miscellaneous. " But an estimate made in 1972-73 by the administration indicated that of the 48,000 registered voters, 57 percent were Afars, 28 percent Issas, and 7. 5 percent "miscellaneous. " And finally the Magendie

The Internal Policy

41

mission report, also dated 1972-73, 15 gave the Afars 37. 5 percent, the Issas 42 percent, and the Somalis 20. 5 percent of the 93, 000 registered voters. It is clear from the fore¬ going that the statistical disparities are appreciable and that the data reflect the same inaccuracies as do the overall popu¬ lation censuses. To this writer, the most credible percent¬ ages for the electorate in 1973 would be 50. 4 percent for the Afars, 38. 8 percent for the Issas, 14. 8 percent for the So¬ malis, and 6 percent for "miscellaneous. "

Political Bickering The elections of March 1975, which took place in a calm at¬ mosphere, witnessed another success for the single slate of candidates headed by Ali Aref, the mandate of the seven out¬ going deputies being renewed. Ali Aref's candidates received 89 percent (8, 854) of the votes cast by 72 percent of the reg¬ istered voters. Because of the active opposition of rival parties, that vote majority was smaller by 4 percent than in the elections held fourteen months earlier, and it perhaps showed a slight decline in Ali Aref's popularity and fore¬ shadowed a change in TFAI public opinion. On the eve of the Chamber's budgetary session in November 1975, the min¬ ister of the civil service, Djama Djilal Djama, and the labor minister, Ibrahim Ahmed Bourale, resigned from the govern¬ ment. The reconstituted cabinet had the task of balancing the 1976 budget at the outset of a period that would prove diffi¬ cult. It totaled almost 6. 5 billion FD, thanks to new sources of revenue, such as an increase in the taxes on water and on building permits. This fiscal proposal caused agitation among the deputies, especially as the government had tied it to general policy issues. Ali Aref did this by stressing such themes as the need to increase contacts with France, the OAU, and some African states; to achieve unity among those with differing political views; and to break down tribal barriers. "This is the price of independence, " he proclaimed. Such talk was something of a novelty, and doubtless to the surprise of its author it did not awaken the response he an¬ ticipated. Barkad Gourat, his faithful disciple, induced others to join him in voting against the government on the grounds that Ali Aref himself had betrayed the Chamber's confidence. He claimed that the premier was trying to negotiate indepen¬ dence for the TFAI without the unanimous approval of that body, and that his haste in dealing with the French govern-

42

Dj ibouti

ment was simply an attempt to camouflage the strictly per¬ sonal objectives that were his goal. Nevertheless, the gov¬ ernment won a vote of confidence by twenty-six votes to thir¬ teen and one abstention. All in all, the end of 1975 and the early months of 1976 did not seem as propitious for Ali Aref's policy as pre¬ vious years had been. A new opposition party, composed mainly of young left-wing Afars, was formed in December 1975 and was called the Mouvement Populaire de Liberation (MPL). In March 1976, the vice-president of the Union Nationale pour l’lnddpendance (UNI), Ahmed Hassan Liban, with¬ drew from Ali Aref's party to join Barkad Gourat, whose dif¬ ferences with Ali Aref became more and more pronounced, and a week later he was joined by Hassan Mohamed Kamil. This increased the number of deputies in the opposition to fifteen. After the events of Loyada^ came an affair of police informers in Djibouti. Five men were arrested, including Ahmed Dini and one of his partisans, who were charged with complicity, and a curfew from 9 p. m. to 6 a. m. was decreed for the capital's African quarter. Dini was imprisoned for two weeks and then temporarily freed. His release reduced the tension, and Hassan Gouled appeared to be satisfied. Unfortunately, the calm did not long prevail, and a series of incidents showed how difficult would be a meeting of minds. On April 15, when the Chamber reconvened, Barkad Gourat and his followers walked out of the meeting over a question of procedure, and at the same session, a dispute between two deputies degenerated into a free-for-all. Senator Barkad proposed a no-confidence motion with a view to form¬ ing a union government that would replace that headed by Ali Aref. His motion was rejected because sixteen voted in favor and twenty-four members of the majority party abstained, and two weeks later, two ministers resigned. In the Chamber, the opposition grew to seventeen and then to nineteen mem¬ bers by the end of May, following the desertion of the ma¬ jority party by two deputies. Among the nineteen opposition deputies were two Afars, showing that the premier's own ethnic group was now causing him serious trouble. For some time, the opposition had been stressing the obsolete character of the July 18, 1963, law on French na¬ tionality, and it was the former minister, Mohamed Djama Elabe, still a deputy, who proposed to the Chamber that it

The Internal Policy

43

be amended. The secretary of state for the DOM/TOM op¬ posed giving it undue importance inasmuch as a redistribution of citizenship would involve no major changes. He believed that of the 15, 000-odd cases under review, probably only 5, 000 to 6, 000 merited consideration, and this was also the opinion of High Commissioner d'Ornano. In any case, the Elabe proposal, despite nineteen votes in its favor, failed to receive the votes of two-thirds of the Chamber's members as required by law for that body's approval. The onset of a rout of the majority party caused the French government to worry about the true state of opinion among both the leaders and the population of Djibouti, and this concern foreshadowed France's disillusionment with Ali Aref. Paradoxically, that development and, above all, the advent of younger people on the political scene were perhaps responsible for the toning down of the old tribal rivalries that had been kept alive by politics. The first signs of this change could be seen in the agitation by Afar students and in the increasing trouble caused by young people even in Ali Aref's bastion of Tadjoura. It had repercussions also in the Chamber, where the now-divided Afars were drawing nearer to the Somali viewpoint, and it was evident in the defection of even well-known majority leaders to the opposition. On July 15, 1976, High Commissioner d'Ornano used his prerogative and asked the premier to convene an extra¬ ordinary session of the Chamber on July 22, thus giving the opposition the chance it had awaited for three months to pro¬ pose a vote of no-confidence in the government. From then on, the French government's distrust was no longer dissimu¬ lated. The premier, after telling the high commissioner that he had no intention of convening the Chamber on his own ini¬ tiative, left for Paris, whence he sent a letter of resignation to the Djibouti Chamber of Deputies. In it, he stated that thenceforth he intended to devote himself solely to his duties as deputy, to promoting the UNI, and to continuing to lead his country toward dignified and peaceful independence. For Ali Aref, this marked the end of seven years as vice-president of the government council and nine years as prime minister of the TFAI. The opposition parties expressed their satisfaction at Ali Aref's retirement without, however, manifesting such ex¬ uberance as might have been expected. Ali Aref's resigna¬ tion now made the high commissioner's proposal irrelevant, so it was up to Ali Arre Khaireh (the labor minister who

44

Dj ibouti

was chosen by his colleagues to act as premier) to convene the deputies in accordance with procedure. The extraordi¬ nary session opened on July 29, 1976, with two groups of deputies--one of which was that of the UNI--being present. In conformity with article 12 of the law of July 3, 1967, a new cabinet of ten members was chosen unanimously by the twenty-four votes cast, the former majority party having ab¬ stained as a result of differences of opinion regarding pro¬ cedure. When the session closed, the new cabinet comprised four Afars, including the premier; four Issas; and two Somalis. The new premier, Abdallah Mohamed Kamil, was a forty-year-old administrator, a graduate of the Institut d'Etudes Politiques of the University of Paris, and secretary-general in the preceding government. Apparently without great poli¬ tical ambition, he had nevertheless formerly been a militant in the Union D^mocratique Afar (UDA), notably in 1965-66. Although he had accepted the 1967 statute, he had not agreed with all of Ali Aref's views, and indeed after 1975 he had severed all connections with him. It should be noted that, in the Chamber, seven of the new ministers belonged to Barkad Gourat's group. Mohamed Ahmed Issa and Moumin Bahdon Farah, the two ministers who were not deputies, were leading militants of the LPAI. No former minister or mem¬ ber of the UNI was invited to join, so the political union previously advocated by all the parties was forgotten—an omission that did not lighten the task of the new government. The premier in his policy speech showed that he had no illusions, and wisely limited his role to that of head of a transitional government. He laid stress on the impossibil¬ ity of solving all the problems in a few months, the necessity for the tribal chiefs to subordinate themselves to the author¬ ity of the future state, and the need to collaborate on terms of equality with the Somali republic and Ethiopia. Abdallah Mohamed Kamil’s first journey, naturally, was to Paris, where he was received by the president of the republic and the premier, who let it be known that the ref¬ erendum would be held early in 1977. Convinced that the problem of national unity had been settled, Kamil took up the second most urgent question for his country—that of the pre¬ carious economic situation and of unemployment. His efforts at Paris in this respect were rewarded, as was indicated by the announcement on his return to Djibouti that a credit of 160 million FD had been authorized to start construction of 800 dwelling units. 18 in this connection, Abdallah Mohamed

The Internal Policy

45

Kamil outlined to the secretary of state for the DOM /TOM a new and generous concept for Djibouti society. The new housing development would accept all ethnic groups without discrimination as residents, and in Kamil's view such coex¬ istence would lay the basis for understanding between them. This proposal was novel in that previously the tribes had usually been grouped in their own districts. The premier's general policy was based on maintain¬ ing absolute equality between the ethnic groups and on his determination to achieve national unity by eliminating racial antagonisms. He brought together indiscriminately the Afars, Somalis, and Arabs who had been born in the territory, and accepted the collaboration of all political parties, including those outside the country, such as the Front de Liberation de la Cote Somalie (FLCS) and the Mouvement de Liberation de Djibouti (MLD). Nor did the new prime minister leave his audience with any illusions as to the difficulties that would surely be associated at the outset with the attainment of gen¬ uine independence. First of all, these difficulties would be financial, because the operating costs of government services would have to be borne by the new state. They would also be administrative and technological, especially at the higher levels, for which training would take time. And there would be monetary problems, because the Djibouti franc would cer¬ tainly have to be kept pegged to the American dollar for an indefinite period. Moreover, there would be military prob¬ lems, for the territory's defense would require creating a national army from scratch. To cope with the inevitable difficulties, Abdallah Mohamed Kamil placed his confidence in recent declarations by the leaders of the Somali republic, which pledged to respect the future nation; in Ethiopia, by reassuring it of full collaboration in respect to use of the railroad and the port of Djibouti; and also in France, whose wholehearted collaboration he solicited: "We need France and we await its aid in certain domains. "19 To this, Olivier Stirn replied indirectly at the end of October by stating that the French government was disposed to ease the territory’s difficult passage through its transitional period. In pursuit of his major goals, Abdallah Mohamed Ka¬ mil was first of all concerned with the country's future civil institutions and military establishment, which had to be cre¬ ated from the ground up. As regards the administration, he established a rapid-training school for carefully selected cadres, and also welcomed the first Somali lawyer to the Djibouti bar. As to the army, he formed the nucleus of the

46

Dj ibouti

country's military hierarchy by using student/noncommissioned officers who had returned from France, and at the time of the referendum he founded a preparatory military academy for volunteers to serve in the army, who then numbered 500. In regard to social relationships, although appreciable progress had been made, much remained to be done. Check¬ ing identity cards and cordoning off Djibouti's districts again led to the expulsion of some hundreds of illegal immigrants. These were certainly not political measures, and they were aimed at putting an end- to the insecurity prevailing in Dji¬ bouti and to the proliferation there of wrong-doers of every description. The weakness of the economy itself was cause for serious concern. Merchants, industrialists, and artisans, worried about the future, packed up and returned to France. The Banque Nationale pour le Commerce et l'lndustrie closed its doors, and the Banque de l'lndochine considerably reduced the duration of its loans. There was a flight of capital, and domestic consumption declined. To be sure, the port no longer enjoyed the boom of former times, but it unexpectedly profited from a new source of revenue thanks to events in neighboring countries. The startling growth in Saudi Arabia's imports, stimulated by petrodollars, quickly caused conges¬ tion in its ports, especially that of Jeddah. The Saudis re¬ solved their problems, probably through adroit political spec¬ ulation, by getting the ships bringing their imports to utilize the port of Djibouti. Unloading such goods, storing them, and reloading them on coastal vessels bound for Jeddah were activities that benefited Djibouti. While awaiting better times, such operations helped to make up for the bypassing of Dji¬ bouti by the supertankers that had become used to taking the route around the Cape of Good Hope. Premier Kamil was certainly aware of the temporary nature of this prosperity, for he spared no effort in seeking financial aid to carry the country through the lean months ahead. At the midpoint of the Paris conference, he went to Brussels, where he won from the directors of the European Economic Fund the prom¬ ise of a program of staggered investments. A few days be¬ fore the referendum, a delegation from that Fund returned Kamil's visit by coming to Djibouti, just as had the deputy secretary general of the UN a few weeks earlier. The dele¬ gation's purpose was to learn under what conditions Djibouti was moving toward independence, and to begin a study of the factors involved in the possible provision of aid to the terri¬ tory. By May, the Fund already planned to allocate 200 million FD to the territory.

The Internal Policy

47

With regard to internal transportation, the Aref govern¬ ment had placed high hopes in a road that would link the TFAI to the highway between Addis Ababa and Assab, with the aim of attracting some of its traffic to the port of Dji¬ bouti. Yet it was clear, because of the sociopolitical trou¬ bles in the region, that the year 1977 was unpropitious for estimating the potential of that route. The road, which was completed at the end of March, had at least the temporary advantage of disencumbering the port of Djibouti, which for long months had been clogged by merchandise and equipment destined for Ethiopia. Construction of that connecting road had in the end cost France some 10 million French francs more than the original estimate. The diplomatic game of hide-and-seek around the TFAI reflected some uneasiness in the area. Like the UN, Khar¬ toum, Riyadh, Aden, and Mogadiscio concurred in wanting the Indian Ocean to be declared a "zone of peace, " but their agreement did not mean unanimity, for Saudi Arabia preferred the formula of a "peaceful Arab lake. " At the same time, Fidel Castro, determined to support African liberation move¬ ments, made a general tour of Ethiopia, the Somali republic, the South Yemen republic, and Tanzania. On his heels came Nicolas Podgorny, who went to Dar es Salaam and Mogadiscio before extending his travels southward. Despite his disavow¬ als before world opinion, the Soviet head of state doubtless had something more concrete to offer his protdgds than Cu¬ ban Marxist ideology in exchange for the Africans' accommo¬ dating friendship. The port of Djibouti received the visit of the French Indian Ocean squadron, as it had in 1974, and the aircraft carrier Clemenceau came there directly from Toulon, its decks covered with planes and helicopters. This armada no longer made any pretence of carrying out a routine mission. Its presence was unequivocally a basic precautionary measure aimed at putting out any spark that might start a conflagra¬ tion in this corner of Africa, protecting French nationals in Djibouti if this were necessary, and, in short, forestalling any trouble until the TFAI should become independent, and even thereafter. Some felt that the move was due to exces¬ sive pessimism, whereas others attributed it to simple vigi¬ lance. There could be no question of France's deliberately and prematurely abandoning the Horn of Africa. Despite the troubled atmosphere, the referendum in the TFAI on that historic Sunday of May 8, 1977, took place without incident, and the army remained aloof. Hassan Gouled

Dj ibouti

48

profited by the favorable circumstances to present publicly his plans for the new nation's construction. Breaking with tradition, he outlined an original program whose main themes were a community of interests, the decentralization of power, the establishment of a national congress and a legislative council, and the creation of responsible workers' organiza¬ tions. 20

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

See pages 6-7. See pages 87-88. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, Jan. 20, 1968. Ibid. , Mar. 30, 1968. Ibid., June 1, 1968. Fascicule Chronologique du Secretariat Permanent de la Chambre des Ddputds du TFAI. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, May 26, 1969. Le Monde, Mar. 17, 1973. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, May 26, 1973. Ibid. , Nov. 10 and 24, 1973. Philippe Oberlg, Afars et Somalis, Le Dossier de Djibouti, Paris, 1971, p. 193. Le Monde, Jan. 16, 1973. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, Sept. 11, 1976. See pages 66, TIL Le Monde, June 10, 1976. See page 19. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, May 15, 1976. Ibid. , Oct. 2, 1976. Ibid. Ibid., May 7, 1977.

4.

VIEWPOINTS ON INDEPENDENCE

The Territorial Government By the end of 1974, it was evident that Ali Aref did not cat¬ egorically reject the principle of independence. "Let there be no misunderstanding, " he said. "If we decide in favor of independence, it will be with France and not against her. " It was also certain that he had sounded out the neighboring countries concerning a project to create a TFAI-Somalia Ethiopia federation. Although it was believed that this proj¬ ect had met with an echo in the foreign capitals concerned, just what response they may have made was not disclosed, and the proposal faded away as quickly as it had appeared. On other occasions, it was thought that Ali Aref conceived of independence as sovereignty guaranteed by an army, though at the time it was not clear whether that army would be French or Arab. In any case, when French troops were pulled out of Madagascar at the end of June 1973, Ali Aref hastened to ask the Paris government that some of them be sent to Djibouti, and at the same time he requested the trans¬ fer there of the Diego Suarez arsenal. However, nothing came of those proposals. Finally, it seemed that Premier Aref was toying with a grandiose design--that of bringing together all the Afars under one flag. "Sooner or later, " he declared, "the Afar triangle will become a new Eritrea. "1 At stake in this scheme were a million individuals scattered over a vast area, their main concentrations being in the three towns of Massawa, Aouache, and Djibouti. The area involved was nearly a fourth that of France, or six and a half times that of the TFAI. Considering that the coastal band was Eritrean, the complexity of the situation is apparent.

50

Dj ibouti

Meanwhile, Ali Aref preferred not to make a firm decision on the question of independence but, rather, to move one more step forward in the country's evolution. He felt that for the moment this was the only way "to safeguard the dignity of the population while at the same time preserving the real interests of those who elected us. "2 Concurrently, his government, suddenly discovering that more than one side of a question should be heard, began to use the same tactics as its adversaries, who were touring the world to propagate their views. Ali Aref, therefore, decided to send two parlia¬ mentary missions to African countries to explain the terri¬ tory's problems and the official view on the question of in¬ dependence. On their return to Djibouti, the members of the two missions reported that the countries visited--Senegal, Ivory Coast, Chad, Libya, Egypt, Cameroun, and the Central African Republic, all of which were members of the OAU-would respect the wishes expressed by the population of the territory, and hoped it would achieve complete independence. The widespread concern about the TFAl's independ¬ ence, which had its repercussions in Djibouti itself, did not always accord with the government's policy, and the local Chamber itself was stirred up. In an important speech early in October at the end of Ramadan, the premier, feeling that he was losing his hold on some of the deputies, said that independence could be envisaged as the heart of a dialogue with all elements of the population, whatever their opinions, and with all the political parties. 2 Two months later, there was no longer, according to Ali Aref, any question of pos¬ sibly "negotiating" independence--it must be granted with all the necessary guarantees. "We have a contract with France, " he said, "and France has no choice. It must guarantee our territorial integrity and has no right to abandon us. It is France's duty to support us, inasmuch as our neighbors are backed by the Russians. "4 From this, one can judge the change in the TFAl's prime minister's attitude. Some thought it was a clever way of cutting the ground from under his ad¬ versaries, but after mid-1974, Ali Aref was increasingly taken with the idea of finding an alternative solution to the existing situation. In early December 1975, a new political organization was formed by members of the majority party. It was called Union Nationale pour l'lnddpendance (UNI) and was headed by Omar Farah Iltere. At once, the UNI openly challenged the LPAI, which had rejected Ali Aref's olive branch. From then on, any possibility of achieving unity seemed compromised.

Viewpoints on Independence

51

"I am receptive to all viewpoints, " said the premier, "but a dialogue with the LPAI is out of the question because that party had taken an unconstitutional and illegal stand. " The same antagonisms were evident among the rank and file of the population, and in public meetings there was constant risk of clashes. The tense atmosphere was reminiscent of the 1950-58 period, and once again in the TFAI the distinc¬ tion between tribal and political concepts was blurred. The worst was avoided thanks only to the foresight and energetic intervention of High Commissioner Dablanc. Early in December, Ali Aref and his wife escaped un¬ injured from a hand-grenade attack in Djibouti that wounded a bodyguard. Responsibility for this attempted murder was claimed by the FLCS of Mogadiscio. The situation had be¬ come ominous, for it seemed that underlying the question of independence there was simply a struggle for power. Less than two weeks later, bodyguards killed two persons who ap¬ peared to threaten the life of Ali Aref. This incident had repercussions in Mogadiscio, where vehement demonstrations took place in front of the French embassy. Meanwhile, in carrying out its new program, the local government continued to take soundings outside the country. Toward the end of November 1975, a delegation composed of a minister and four deputies was sent to contact the OAU Liberation Committee at Dar es Salaam, and from there it went to Nairobi and Addis Ababa. This mission encountered a host of critics among representatives of the MLD, the FLCS, and the LPAI, but its members were nevertheless able to put forward their views as to the territory's future. The resolution passed by the Liberation Committee urged the parties concerned to start negotiations with the TFAI govern¬ ment, expressed the hope that neighboring countries would help the OAU to facilitate negotiations, and included the de¬ cision to send a mission of inquiry to the territory. A month later, Ali Aref conferred in Paris with President Giscard d'Estaing, Olivier Guichard, Olivier Stirn, and Jacques Chirac about the pressing questions then facing the TFAI. Aref be¬ lieved that realistic steps should be taken, while there was still time, to prevent the TFAI from following the example of the Portuguese colonies, and he also was convinced that this would, to some degree, involve maintaining France's presence there in accordance, he claimed, with the will of the population. In his official statement to the press, he summed up his views by saying that the TFAl's attainment of independence was "irreversible, " but he believed it should

52

Dj ibouti

be accomplished with "military and economic guarantees on the part of France, as well as a pledge from the OAU to re¬ spect its frontiers." The foregoing indicates how much pro¬ gress Ali Aref had made in less than three months in han¬ dling affairs of state. To resume the contacts made in December, the Cham¬ ber of Deputies sent to Paris another delegation consisting of five local deputies and Omar Farah Iltere. It remained in the French capital for some little time during early January. Concurrently, Ali Aref began commuting between Djibouti and various capitals, so that the year 1976 began with unusual political activity. In Paris, the authorities concerned began studies of practical ways in which to carry out the agree¬ ments already reached as regards cooperation, currency guarantees, and the assuring of security by the French army. Some marginal questions were also gone into, such as en¬ larging the distribution of identity cards, to better equal¬ ize the relative strength of the ethnic groups. Technical and financial agreements with the Fonds d'lnvestissement pour le Ddveloppement Economique et Social (FIDES) were signed for 1976, and funds to alleviate unemployment were promised. Barkad Gourat, who had participated in some of the talks that took place at the end of December, refused to at¬ tend those held in January 1976 on the ground that only Ali Aref had invited him to do so. He simply handed to Olivier Stirn a memorandum outlining the dangers that the territory would rim if the French government continued to deal with the present premier on the subject of independence. Obvi¬ ously, the concept of freedom as proposed by Ali Aref, albeit farsighted, was not of such a kind as to please the entire population, especially as the premier insisted that to pre¬ serve its independence his country would remain dependent militarily, economically, and culturally on an external power. In Ali Aref's view, there was no reason why France should not play such a role. Barkad Gourat, for his part, was concerned above all with the procedural form such talks would take. With the backing of his group of thirteen depu¬ ties, he contended that the most logical way of negotiating with the French government was to recreate, by means of fresh elections, a majority party that would be different from the existing one, and that the right of the LPAI to take part in the vote should be assured. As regards French officials in the TFAI, the high commissioner, known for his cautious public statements until early in 1976, could now fall into line with the Metropole's new directives, while still not concealing

Viewpoints on Independence

53

his belief that France's presence in the TFAI was indispen¬ sable for an indefinite period. Still trying to discover the attitudes of various heads of state toward the TFAI, Ali Aref made another tour of Afri¬ can capitals during the first half of February 1976, accom¬ panied this time by only two of his followers. From Kam¬ pala, where he received an unexpectedly warm welcome, he proceeded to Lusaka, Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, Abidjan, and Dakar. It was his meeting at Dar es Salaam with the secre¬ tary general of the FLCS, Aden Roble Awale, that apparently caused the Mogadiscio government to relieve the latter of his post and imprison him. After this trip, Ali Aref, along with Hassan Gouled, was invited to attend the twenty-sixth meeting of the OAU Council of Foreign Ministers. Although the agen¬ da of this conference was especially concerned with the future of the TFAI, its representatives were asked to present their analyses of the territory's situation. There were the usual opposing points of view, which invariably ended thus: "The LPAI always refuses to talk" (the version of the majority), and "The present government does not represent the people" (the opposition's version). Marshal Amin Dada and General Tefere Bente, who organized the conference, could do no more than express the hope that a reconciliation between the two major ethnic groups would take place before the territory achieved independence. In March, Ali Aref returned to Addis Ababa to attend an international meeting. This gave him the chance to dis¬ cuss again with the French president the terms and conditions — though not the date—of the referendum, as well as those of electing a constituent assembly following dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies. In conformity with its resolution adopted six months previously, the OAU was ablo for the first time to send a fact-finding mission to Djibouti. That it was permitted to go there could be seen as evidence of the French govern¬ ment's determination to overlook nothing that might help the TFAI attain independence under the best possible conditions. The mission, headed by the Egyptian ambassador to Uganda, comprised eight delegates from African states other than the countries adjacent to the TFAI--Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, and Sudan. In four days they made considerable progress, conferring individually with all the party and union leaders, calling on the local authorities, and touring all the cercles of the hinterland. Although at Djibouti the mission received

54

Dj ibouti

nothing but acclaim, it was the ostensible cause of a violent clash at Tadjoura between opposing groups, in which one person was killed and four wounded, and also at Obock, where there were no casualties. At almost the same time in Djibouti, there was talk about disagreements between High Commissioner d'Ornano and Ali Aref. There is no doubt but that the position of all the French high commissioners, who were rotated there every two years and sometimes more frequently, was difficult, es¬ pecially as France was steadily increasing Ali Aref's author¬ ity. Camille d'Ornano, who came at a time when TFAI poli¬ tics were undergoing a rapid change, was particularly ill at ease as he had become the target for somewhat excitable militants. Thus, shortly before the delegates from local parties left for Paris early in June 1976, several hundred Afars demonstrated at his residence against the Metropole's new policy. Quickly driven away by the police, the crowd grew to several thousand, who massed on the outskirts of the Arrhiba district. Fortunately, there were no instances of police brutality or of injuries to individuals. After the Paris discussions, the UNI gave vent to its annoyance by stressing the inconsistencies in the agreement reached there and the manner in which the French authorities had misled its leader, Omar Farah Iltere. On the other hand, the UNI expected much from the twenty-seventh meet¬ ing of the OAU foreign ministers at Mauritius, where Djibouti was again in the limelight. The usual three delegations from the TFAI attended, and for the first time the MPL was rep¬ resented there by two of its members. In fact, that meeting resembled a tempest in a teacup, for the Djibouti question came up on the agenda just at the time when the Israelis raided Entebbe airport to free the hostages held on the Tel Aviv-Athens-Paris plane. That lightning commando attack, taken in the context of the overall fast-moving African sce¬ nario, somewhat distracted the five or six heads of state who had made the trip to Port Louis. As regards the TFAI, nothing very concrete resulted from that summit meeting be¬ yond the usual admonitions to France to grant it independence before the end of 1976, along with taking note of the chronic differences between Somalia and Ethiopia, urging all member nations to respect the forthcoming sovereignty of the terri¬ tory, and encouraging Djibouti's various political parties to agree on a common program. It was that program which was to be studied at the next OAU meeting, scheduled to be held in August 1977 at Accra, Ghana.

Viewpoints on Independence

55

Unfortunately, the realization of that hope of the OAU became increasingly remote, judging from statements made by Ahmed Dini at Djibouti, in which Ali Aref had become his main target. His conclusion was that "we cannot meet at any table, be it round or rectangular, with a political cadaver. The only striking, if not novel, development that grew out of the Mauritius summit meeting was a rap¬ prochement between the LPAI, the FLCS, and the opposition in the Chamber of Deputies led by Barkad Gourat. There was even talk of setting up a "United Front, " from which, however, the MPL of Djibouti and the MLD of Addis Ababa chose to remain aloof. The MPL told the summit-conference chairman that the referendum would be useless, French troops must leave the territory, and police repression there should be ended. The MLD cited as opponents of independence not only the government in power but also the FLCS and Barkad Gourat's followers. All in all, it seemed at Port Louis as if the TFAI delegates had carefully listed the negative as¬ pects of their country's position, and Robert Basset of Le Rdveil de Djibouti commented that "not one of them brought up the question of what we shall be and how we shall live after independence is proclaimed. "® The tone of discussions of the problem outside the territory had its repercussions in the TFAI, where tempers rose. Ali Aref was charged with having become less and less the head of a state and more and more of a party leader, and sometimes the French gov¬ ernment was reproached with "delaying independence by play¬ ing the game of the opposition. " It is quite possible that Ali Aref was on the defensive because he felt that he had been abandoned by the Metropole. Still another opportunity to discuss the Djibouti ques¬ tion was offered at the summit meeting of nonaligned nations held in August 1976 at Colombo. Ethiopia reaffirmed the policy of neutrality that it had enunciated at Addis Ababa and at sessions of the UN and the OAU. Two months later in New York, Djibouti again drew attention at the fourth meeting of the UN Decolonization Committee. As usual, that body asked that French troops leave the TFAI at once. Observers have sometimes been surprised that resolutions passed by the UN General Assembly at that period sometimes went beyond the demands made by the territorial government and even by some moderate elements of the opposition. However that may be, the General Assembly approved the Decolonization Committee's resolution, while the representative of France qualified it as an interference in French internal affairs and therefore null and void. On the other hand, he reiterated

56

Dj ibouti

his country's intention of fulfilling its obligations to the end, adding that the UN also had the duty of helping unreservedly to make the TFAl's independence effective and respected, should the referendum prove to be in favor of that status. The new TFAI premier, Abdallah Mohamed Kamil, ac¬ companied by Ahmed Dini, as representative of the LPAI, and by Omar Farah Iltere, spokesman for the UNI, used the time he spent in New York to promote his country's institu¬ tional development and progress toward independence. On his return, he passed through Paris, where he was received by President Giscard d'Estaing. Upon arriving at Djibouti, he stated that the proclamation of independence could take place before July 1, 1977, but he did not hide from his audi¬ ence the difficulties that would await the country's future leaders, because they would have to give up the artificial props that had been sustaining its economy. In this connec¬ tion, the premier added that he intended to develop all local resources to the maximum and to reject any restrictive mili¬ tary alliances and all political ties abroad, but that he would welcome material aid from international sources. As to guarantees for the new state's sovereignty, he counted on the UN and the OAU. To that end, he strongly insisted that there be appended to the Liberation Committee's declaration a concurrent statement by the TFAl's two neighboring coun¬ tries that would solemnly reconfirm the expressions of sym¬ pathy that they had made from time to time at various inter¬ national conferences. During the latter half of April, some time before the referendum was scheduled, precautions were taken so that it should be properly carried out. These included forming a supervisory committee of twelve Metropolitan French na¬ tionals and a three-member census committee, as well as making preparations to receive delegations from the UN, the OAU, and the Arab League. Consequently, the local author¬ ities could not be reproached with a lack of foresight in pre¬ paring for the election. The fact that the TFAI was calm during the last weeks prior to the referendum was undoubtedly noted by foreign observers, and the Arab League gave France credit for it. Reports of the measures taken by the Metropole in Djibouti beginning in April 1977 reached Dakar, where a summit meeting of twelve African heads of state was being held in the presence of an honored guest, President Giscard d'Estaing. ^ Somewhat anticipating events, that conference's organizers had invited a representative from the TFAI to be present at their discussions. They also used this occasion

Viewpoints on Independence

57

to invite the TFAI leaders to the OAU conference to be held in July, thus suggesting that the Djibouti republic would be¬ come the forty-ninth member of the OAU and the twenty-first member of the Arab League. Several surprises were in store for Djibouti during the first days of May. Hassan Gouled, known as a veteran moderate campaigner and elder statesman, seemed the candi¬ date most likely to attract votes for the presidency of the future republic, but Ali Aref, who had remained in the back¬ ground for the preceding nine months, surprised his compa¬ triots by supporting his old adversary. In so doing, he said that he was acting in the best interests of the nation, and expressed the hope that in the history of his country "the first chapter would be written in letters of gold and not in blood red. " His former Afar companions, without refusing to vote for independence, nevertheless did not wholly follow his lead. Aligning themselves with the views of Barkad Gourat, they held that the single slate of candidates for elec¬ tions to the Chamber was unfavorable to them. The UNI and the MPL advocated turning in blank ballots in the elec¬ tion of deputies.

The Opposition Two months after the legislative by-election of March 1975, there occurred fierce ethnic clashes whose precise origin was unclear. It was at that time that the two opposition leaders, Hassan Gouled and Ahmed Dini, had talks with Oliv¬ ier Stirn in Paris, and they asked him point blank about the short-term prospects for independence. The attitude of the LPAI was hardening. Stirn reminded them that in 1967 the TFAI population had voted to remain with France and that that decision should be respected. For the LPAI leaders, this was a flat refusal, and it was confirmed as such a few days later in a letter to them. Actually, using the March 1967 vote as a basic reference in this matter was somewhat outdated, if only in respect to the changes that had occurred in voting by some of the Afars. The idea of independence was spreading like an oil slick, and the difficulty of trying to reverse its course can well be imagined. Stirn and the local authorities were aware of this phenomenon but doubtless hoped to gain time. High Commissioner Christian Dablanc, without then opposing inde¬ pendence in principle, believed that it should emanate from

58

Dj ibouti

the will of the population, most of whom he felt still preferred the status quo. Apparently, therefore, there was a persistent contradiction between the official thesis and that of the LPAI, which claimed to represent the majority opinion. In the eyes of the LPAI leaders, an appreciable number of the majorityparty members also wanted independence but did not dare to express their view for fear of reprisals and of losing their jobs. Convinced that it was voicing widespread aspirations, the LPAI felt itself qualified to carry on bilateral discussions at higher levels. To be sure, the LPAI was not officially recognized by the OAU.as the FLCS had been, but it enjoyed that body's unreserved support. As an appendage to the FLCS of Mogadiscio, there had been in existence for more than a decade a secessionist group at Dird-Daoua called the Comitd de Liberation de Djibouti, whose established leader was an Afar named Ahmed Bourhan Omar. After the Loyada events, he had shown himself to be in disagreement with the FLCS and opposed to needless vio¬ lence, and he also rejected the expansionist aims of the So¬ mali republic. From this position, it took only one more step to believe that he was being covertly manipulated by the Ethiopian authorities, especially as his views echoed those of the Addis Ababa press. "We shall not stand idly by while the Somalis infiltrate into the TFAI, thus endangering the fundamental interests of our country. "8 In fact, that com¬ mittee had moved its headquarters to Addis Ababa, where it took the name of the Mouvement de Liberation de Djibouti (MLD). In Djibouti, meanwhile, discussions revolved around the steps leading to independence rather than the basic issues involved. Local French officialdom, taking a legalistic view, concluded that France had the duty of remaining in the TFAI, for two main reasons. One was to ensure the well-being of its people so that they could accomplish the development to which they aspired, and the second was to guarantee the se¬ curity that they presumably needed in view of the claims made on the territory from all sides. There was perhaps a third, more or less hidden, reason: this was the strategic role that the TFAI could play in the vast area abutting on the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean, which had again come to world attention. Ideologies aside, this area's importance obviously lay in its petroleum reserves, but the French government's statements made no reference to that aspect of the matter.

Viewpoints on Independence

59

At Paris, the policy of the LPAI was set forth in June 1975 by a delegation that had come at the invitation of the French Socialist Party, along with representatives from other territories, to a meeting focused on the overseas departments and territories. Francois Mitterand stated that his followers wanted to further the process of decolonization, but at the same time he urged patience until his party came--inevitably, in his view--to power. At Djibouti, the proponents of inde¬ pendence showed the same optimism but from a less doctrinal viewpoint. They refused to believe that any precipitate incur¬ sion by neighboring countries would occur, as some journal¬ ists warned, and they put their faith in the socialist principles and recent statements of General Syaad Barre, president of the Somali Democratic Republic. Moreover, they hoped to have talks with the new revolutionary leaders of Ethiopia, to whom they would not deny access to the sea through Djibouti. In such a climate of good will, they averred, the presence of the French army was superfluous. This was a favorite theme of Ahmed Dini, who said that "we don't want any military base. At most we might accept officers to train our army, which is adequate to defend us. It is not normal for a sov¬ ereign state to have a foreign army on its soil. "9 As to the transfer of power, this could be done by stages, including the thorny questions involving the economy. Hesitation, ex¬ perimentation, and even partial failures—were they not per¬ haps the lot of every revolution? queried the LPAI members, who firmly believed that everything would fall into place. Such an optimistic forecast was regarded with mis¬ givings by some commentators. Indeed, these doubters be¬ lieved that in a country with such meager potential as the TFAI, huge amounts of capital would be required in order to derive anything from its soil or its marine environment--in other words, for the TFAI to survive, it would have to seek aid from the powerful and the rich. These same critics be¬ lieved that among the latter there were many that would ea¬ gerly respond to appeals in return for some concessions that, at the outset, would be cleverly disguised. Gradually, these concessions would be replaced by more binding ones, with the result that the territory would be unable to free itself from any of them. In general, the standpoint of the opposition in the TFAI during the 1970s seemed different from that which had pre¬ vailed between 1960 and 1966. Its leaders no longer spoke — at least openly--of joining the neighboring Somali republic but

60

Djibouti

expressed their desire to build up their country themselves. Furthermore, some members of the opposition were not wholly against economic and even military cooperation with France, although others thought that that would no longer serve any useful purpose. Their common objective was to create a very liberal, democratic state. In order to follow closely international opinion and es¬ pecially to make its views heard, the LPAI hastened to steal a march on the majority party7 by sounding out the groups it believed to be the most' sympathetic to its cause and attending the major African conferences. Hassan Gouled went to Al¬ giers and New York, he and Ahmed Dini journeyed to Kam¬ pala and Paris, and the members of the opposition became uneasy. At the OAU summit meeting in Kampala during the last days of July 1975, which was boycotted by some African heads of state (Zambia, Botswana, Tanzania, and Mozambique having refused to be represented on the ministerial council), the LPAI leaders heard the charges made against France by Idi Amin Dada and the bitter diatribes of Aden Roble A wale, secretary general of the FLCS. They learned that the latter's followers "would not recoil from using such convincing methods as seizing hostages, as had already occurred in Mogadiscio. "10 This statement was devoid of the slightest decorum and conformed to extremist practices. It was almost a repe¬ tition of the threats of Aden Roble Awale in 1973, when he said, "we have no choice but to shed blood, and we are ready to sacrifice a hundred natives to destroy one Frenchman. "H His successor, Salah Nour, proved to be more diplomatic, for although he firmly supported the usual goals of his party — the exclusion of Ali Aref, the withdrawal of French troops, a guarantee exclusively by the OAU and the UN of the TFAl's independence, and abrogation of all laws dating from the co. lonial period—he favored an alliance among all the parties in the territory without exception, and an end to longstandingfeuds and errors of the past. "If we had to pass judgment on all who served the colonial regime, we would also have to condemn members of the LPAI, " he asserted. 12 In December 1975, the UN Decolonization Committee as well as the General Assembly almost unanimously (with the exception only of Ethiopia) adopted resolutions that called upon France to grant the TFAI immediate and unconditional independence, to free political prisoners, and to withdraw its troops, and they also urged the neighboring countries to give up any territorial claims. The best-informed opinion saw

Viewpoints on Independence

61

such an unguaranteed form of independence as gravely jeop¬ ardizing the maintenance of peace in the region, and, in sum, a dangerous series of measures. After the UN session ended, the French television network announced that Hassan Gouled had returned triumphantly to Djibouti, greeted by 12, 000 per¬ sons shouting "Independence!," and members of delegations who had also returned from abroad were reported as having announced that they had been "assured of the support of sixty eight [sic] Arab and African countries. "13 Soon afterward, the opposition shelved the principle of linking the territory's destiny to any external power whatsoever and, frustrated at no longer monopolizing the concept of independence, declared that Ali Aref did not represent the majority views of the pop¬ ulation. In support of its views, the LPAI held two trump cards: these were, first, financial aid from the Somali re¬ public, which could no longer be doubted, and its moral sup¬ port, which the League had long enjoyed. Mogadiscio had recently put forward officially the old claims of the seces¬ sionist organizations to which it had always given shelter, and Somalia's leader, Syaad Barre, denounced in person the inconsistencies of the "puppet president" of Djibouti. The LPAI's second trump card was the advantages it derived from the shift that had just taken place in the strength of the forces in the Chamber that had traditionally supported the government, for time had seemingly done its work of erosion. The public had become so used to a docile Chamber of Deputies that those attending the session of November 19, 1975, were astounded when exactly one-third of the deputies (by twenty-six votes in favor, thirteen against, and one ab¬ stention) expressed their lack of confidence in the premier. Furthermore, Ali Aref's long-time follower, Barkad Gourat, who had already voted against the majority party on several important issues and with whom nine deputies had lined up in September, stopped supporting Ali Aref and used every opportunity to oppose his policy. During the debate on the 1976 budget, Barkad Gourat voted against the government's program and even tried to form a parliamentary opposition group, the Union pour le Progres dans FEnsemble Frangais (UPEF), whose name resembled that of a slate of candidates in the election of November 1973. During the budgetary ses¬ sion, the deputies almost came to blows. The about-face of the TFAI senator, who was also the deputy from Dikhil, gave rise to speculation. Between him

62

Dj ibouti

and the premier there was no ethnic dispute but perhaps per¬ sonal differences and, almost surely, the senator's repudia¬ tion of the premier's "individualism and pretentiousness. " An example of such pretentions could be found in the following statement by Ali Aref: "Up to now France has guaranteed internal autonomy; if it agrees to guarantee our independence with me as leader, I shall ask for it. " Barkad Gourat also reproached Ali Aref with his indulgence toward Ethiopia, which to the senator was the Afars' traditional enemy. Although he joined the moderate opposition, Gourat wanted free elections, and in this he differed from the LPAI, which urged direct negotiations with the French government for the grant of un¬ conditional independence without any sort of consultation. The senator's position was nearer to that of the French left-wing parties, which advocated supervised elections. To that end, he demanded the abrogation of laws related to civil status and a revision of voter registration. In rejecting forceful methods, he counted on the procedures laid down in the 1967 statute by which Ali Aref could be legally overthrown, and this seemed quite possible in the near future, given the re¬ cent change in attitude among the deputies. When that change of front occurred, Barkad Gourat repudiated customary au¬ thority, just as had been done formerly by Mahmoud Harbi, who then was treated as an "enemy of the Afar people" by the sultans of Raheita, Tadjoura, and Gobad. 14 Ahmed Dini, for his part, used the opening provided by this quarrel over the premier's representativeness to state that "independence should be given to the people and not to Ali Aref. If France should offer it as a gift to him, the present government would not last for even one week, and the trouble that would probably ensue would occur because France wanted such an eventuality. "15 He added that his organization would not take part in the referendum should Ali Aref remain in power. As for Hassan Gouled, he said that his followers opposed Ali Aref because the latter was a dictator, and for that reason he asked for the premier's resignation. He regretted that France was backing Ali Aref's authoritarian rule. In advocating negotiations, he stated his belief that the road to indepen¬ dence should not be charted by a single man but by a com¬ mission representing every political viewpoint, whose first task would be a revision of the electoral rolls, the popula¬ tion census, and conditions for granting citizenship. In turn, Wahib Issa, the LPAl's deputy secretary general, criticized the way in which the local government managed public funds,

Viewpoints on Independence

63

in subordinating human welfare to the construction of "fine buildings. " As regards the preparations for a referendum, he said that "if France does not alter its position, our party will reject the referendum, and the LPAI will adopt a hard line. "16 Despite the deliberately uncompromising nature of such statements, there was a distinct difference between the stand taken by the LPAI and that of the foreign-based FLCS. In part, this was due to the composition of the FLCS, which had brought together hardliners, of whom some were voluntary exiles and others had been expelled from the TFAI by the police. Among the latter there was certainly a small num¬ ber who, to varying degrees, had accounts to settle with the French. After some hesitation and under pressure by the Somali government, the FLCS militants by 1975 and early 1976 no longer disguised their conviction that armed struggle was the best means of directly liberating the TFAI. The LPAI, on the other hand, publicly expressed its belief in the powers of persuasion, although its faith was somewhat shaken by the events at Loyadal? and the arrest of Ahmed Dini. About the middle of February 1976, during a demonstration by the LPAI (which initially had been forbidden and later was permitted by the high commissioner), Hassan Gouled, who had wanted a peaceful demonstration to protest against the injustices perpetrated by those in power and to free Ahmed Dini and his six followers, did not renounce his peaceful objectives but warned the authorities of the danger of impetu¬ ous actions by the country’s youth. He expressed the fear that they might outflank his party, and said that he would "no longer assume responsibility for anything that might hap¬ pen" if the authorities did not stop persecuting members of the League. The disturbances that ensued unfortunately re¬ peated the established pattern of all movements in which the populace participated. In the course of what is planned to be a peaceful demonstration, unruly elements often incite dis¬ orders and some people are injured. If the police make ar¬ rests, this leads to further action by the mob for the purpose of freeing the prisoners. In regard to the French army, what was the opposi¬ tion’s attitude? At the outset of the crisis, as already noted, opinions were divided. At that time, Hassan Gouled did not oppose the continued presence of French troops in the TFAI once it had become a sovereign state, but early in 1976 he began to equivocate when asked if the LPAl's goal was inde¬ pendence "against" France. He replied, "In one sense, yes,

64

Dj ibouti

in another no. If the French remain to oppress the people as they have done recently, we will not even accept France's friendship. "18 The hardliners, on the other hand, were un¬ compromising. Wahib Issa saw no reason "why the French army should remain in the territory, " considering that its population wanted immediate independence. As for Ahmed Dini, he showed extraordinary generosity. Said he, "Coop¬ eration with France does not concern military matters. Be¬ ing a small country with a very sparse population, our weak¬ ness will not make us the prey of our neighbors, because, representing no threat to anyone, we shall not be threatened. "19 He went on to say that the army was unduly large and ab¬ sorbed too much money. A little later, he went further, coming out against the presence of the French army and even against signing cooperation agreements with France.

Paris Tilts Toward Independence By the mid-1970s, a remarkable degree of consensus between France's political parties and the government had been reached with regard to the TFAl's future. The left-wing parties, by tradition and conviction, believed in the inevitability of de¬ colonization, but both had lost such confidence as they had had in Ali Aref's leadership, the socialists now giving their support to the LPAI and the communists to the FLCS. Sur¬ prisingly, the Gaullists' viewpoint, as voiced by former Premier Pierre Messmer, 20 judged that the sooner that dangerous and useless hot spot became independent the bet¬ ter. Nevertheless, neither the Gaullists nor the socialists rejected a continued French "presence" in Djibouti to keep order and to hold annexationist neighbors at bay. Olivier Stirn, as government spokesman, stated that the administra¬ tion did not oppose eventual independence for the TFAI but insisted on careful preparation for it, including, if possible, guarantees for the future state's internal and external securi¬ tyIn May 1975, the government in Paris decided that it was necessary to sound out public opinion in the TFAI. The secretary of state concerned, Olivier Stirn, took advantage of the inauguration at Djibouti of the new administrative cen¬ ter and the Boulevard Georges Pompidou to spend some time in the territory. In one of his speeches, he asserted: "I say forcefully and solemnly that, so long as France remains responsible, there will be no infringement of the freedom of the Afars and Issas.... France will guarantee the free ex-

Viewpoints on Independence

65

pression of the territory's will. "21 He also informed his au¬ dience that the French government had agreed to revise the TFAI’s statute, which had been in force for nine years. There was as yet no question of discussing the form that indepen¬ dence would take, but France's policy in the matter was be¬ ginning to evolve. Four months later, on his return from Paris, where he had met with Giscard d'Estaing and Olivier Stirn, Ali Aref declared over Radio Djibouti that his government intended to seek ways to attain genuine independence. A change in ori¬ entation seemed to be taking place, though without precise knowledge of the Paris government's official position. Until then, Giscard d'Estaing had never in his talks initiated dis¬ cussions of specific changes in the TFAI’s status. Even the remarks made when the new ambassador from Ethiopia pre¬ sented his credentials in December 1975 yielded no clue as to the president's position. Nevertheless, during a meeting at Marseille of representatives from the chambers of com¬ merce of the overseas departments, it was noted that Olivier Stirn in his speech said: "Self-government is an ambiguous status that almost always leads to independence. On the other hand, people are satisfied with a departmental status in that they enjoy the same privileges as those in the Metropole, and it is sometimes even accepted by some of the op¬ position parties. "22 The secretary of state restated his posi¬ tion in the Senate a few days later, and shortly afterward he lavished praise on the inhabitants of Mayotte (in the Comoro Islands), who had rejected independence in favor of becoming an overseas department of France. For the time being, the French government seemed to have accepted in principle a revision of the TFAl's statute, but without specifying the exact form it would take. It was not until Premier Ali Aref made further trips at the end of 1975 that details of the French government's decision were spelled out in an official communique. France recognized the TFAl's readiness for independence and promised to main¬ tain its frontiers intact. This was the first clear-cut policy statement to that effect, and as such was a solemn declara¬ tion of intent. Andre Rossi, the government spokesman, outlined the steps by which it would be carried out in these terms: "After the French Parliament approves the draft law, the population will be consulted by means of a referen¬ dum. " Later, the secretary of state for the DOM/TOM in¬ dicated the procedure by which the TFAI could legally make the decision that would determine its future. If the population

66

Dj ibouti

so desired, he said, France would guarantee the country's genuine independence under peaceful conditions and would in every way help to promote its economic progress. Not until after soundings could be made--and this would take some time--could the French Parliament organize a referendum. That vote was scheduled for the spring of 1977, and it would require six more months at the most for the French Parlia¬ ment to give its final approval to the new statute. Even by the end of 1976, it could not be foreseen exactly how the question that was to be put to the population would be phrased, but the French lawmakers envisaged it as offering the choice between independence and integration into the community rep¬ resented by the French republic. Early in 1976, the political volte-face of the TFAI ministers and deputies who deserted Ali Aref seemed to cast the French authorities into some disarray. The Paris gov¬ ernment was caught between supporting the prime minister, whom it had viewed as one of the few valid candidates to lead the new state, and keeping pace with the changing local situation. To avoid acting precipitately but without going back on its decision, Paris gained time by making meticulous preparations for organizing the referendum. Early in Febru¬ ary, to explain this position, the secretary of state for the DOM/TOM laid down three conditions that would have to be met before any decision was taken. These were the con¬ tinued presence of French troops in the territory for the time being; consultations with other countries, primarily African ones; and finally the assurance that the tribal groups and the parties would reach an understanding so that the le¬ gitimate rights of minorities would be respected. It was open to question whether or not Paris might not have to alter its policy, notably as regards its strategy for organizing an "irreproachable" referendum--a referendum that on the world scene became the target of much speculation. The French government could not deny the presence of organized forces in the territory but did contend that it had not made it a military base in the technical sense of the term. At this time, France did not plan to keep its troops in the TFAI except in conformity with a bilateral agreement to be reached with the future sovereign state, as it had done with several other former African dependencies. This raised the question as to what would happen if the new state, adopt¬ ing the views of Ahmed Dini, secretary general of the LPAI, refused to enter into such an agreement. That eventuality had to be envisaged, and although it had been readily accepted

Viewpoints on Independence

67

by Jean Francois-Poncet, secretary of state for foreign af¬ fairs, after his tour of Africa and the Middle East, it was regarded by Michel Debrd, the deputy from Reunion, as "very serious." Debra’s pessimism in regard to the TFAl's future was well known, and he expressed it again at the end of 1976 even when Djibouti seemed to be enjoying a period of calm. Beginning in February 1976, the Paris government took some new steps that could be interpreted as precaution¬ ary measures related to the forthcoming referendum: --It invited delegates from the majority and opposition parties of the TFAI to come to Paris in May with a view to finding the basis for an agreement between them. The FLCS and the MLD, which were based abroad, were not included, and the MPL.23 Qf Djibouti was ignored. --While Ali Aref was visiting several African capitals, Paris dispatched Francois-Poncet to sound out the Africans and the TFAFs neighbors. Public opinion naturally judged this move to be in contradiction to the efforts being put forth by the TFAI premier. Ali Aref, trying not to show bitter¬ ness, explained it by saying, "Perhaps our interests diverge from those of France. " --The French government also planned to authorize the OAU to send a delegation to Djibouti so that that organi¬ zation could understand the need for holding a referendum and at the same time grasp the opposing viewpoints of the LPAI and the majority party. Paris also told the OAU that it would welcome the presence of observers at the time of the vote. This in itself was a departure from the previous position maintained by the Metropole, which had always op¬ posed any foreign interference during the voting in the TFAI. It was perhaps the beginning of a new attitude on the part of the Paris government, which seemed to be confirmed a few months later when President Giscard d'Estaing, in receiving President Ahidjo of Cameroun, said that "Africa should be left to the Africans. " --In March 1976, it became apparent that France no longer insisted upon making the continued presence of French troops in Djibouti the sine qua non for any discussion of its independence. In this matter, it seemed to be inspired by the views of Admiral Schweitzer, commander of French naval forces in the Indian Ocean, who advocated maintaining mobile forces in the region rather than relying on massive defenses at fixed points. The conditions France proposed for holding the refer¬ endum were not accepted as readily as might have been ex-

68

Dj ibouti

pected, for the opposition revived its criticism of the census taking that was to precede the vote and called for a drastic revision of the laws of July 1933 and June 1972 that specified the conditions for acquiring French citizenship. Arguing that the local authorities' expulsion of many persons had been carried out at the expense of LPAI members and supporters, the opposition once again stressed that the very principles upon which the referendum was to be based were inherently illegal and defective. Consequently, the LPAI leaders threat¬ ened to desist from taking part in the vote scheduled for early in 1977. This was the -theme insistently reiterated by Ahmed Dini after his liberation at the end of February. He also in¬ duced his party to revive the quarrel over personalities, say¬ ing that "if France continues to back Ali Aref, we shall boy¬ cott the referendum. " Then, too, it became difficult to arrive at an accurate appraisal of Ali Aref's behavior. Many people living in the TFAI who were not involved in political maneuvering believed in Ali Aref's sincerity and patriotism, despite the sometimes obvious partiality that he displayed. On the other hand, a certain section of the French press that specialized in Afri¬ can affairs held that Ali Aref alone was the real obstacle to the territory's peaceful decolonization and that his local op¬ ponents regarded him as a dictator. Instead of displaying the frame of mind that France would have liked, the TFAI seemed headed toward sharper disagreement if not new trou¬ bles. It appeared hopeless to expect that one day the situa¬ tion in Djibouti would become stabilized. Such pessimism was not confined to persons concerned directly with the TFAI but was reflected in comments made by some enlightened African heads of state. When Senegal's president, Leopold Senghor, visited President Giscard d'Estaing in mid-March 1976, he characterized France's policy in Djibouti as honest, but expressed doubts as to the future of the TFAI as he did about that of many other liberated African countries. Senghor's feeling was shared by Ivory Coast's president, Fdlix Houphouet-Boigny. In conformity to the French government's policy, dele¬ gates of the TFAl's various political groups were invited to Paris in May. Each delegation was received separately by Olivier Stirn, who tried to find a common ground between them, but, strictly speaking, there was no meeting that could be described as a "round table. " Negotiations were difficult and lasted for more than a week. Each side repeated its old arguments and only grudgingly made the slightest concession.

Viewpoints on Independence

69

Finally, after their meeting with the president of the repub¬ lic, the representatives of the three TFAI political movements signed a joint declaration. It expressed in general terms their desire to have neighboring states and the international organizations recognize the territory’s sovereignty, possibly to conclude cooperation agreements between their new state and France, and finally to form a government of national union should a change in the existing majority take place. More interesting and more specific was the commit¬ ment by the French government to submit to the Parliament a draft law containing a new definition of French nationality for the TFAl's inhabitants, which was tantamount to extending civic rights to another segment of the population. Ahmed Dini and Barkad Gourat, although not wholly satisfied, saw genuine progress in this draft law. Omar Farah Iltere signed the agreement in the name of the majority party, but he had reservations. Ali Aref, himself, did not hide his disappoint¬ ment and described the Paris discussions as a series of pri¬ vate conversations rather than a real colloquium. It is likely that these TFAI leaders were not yet psychologically prepared for such a meeting of minds, and were incapable of making the effort needed to achieve a genuine union. When Olivier Stirn stated publicly that what the TFAI required was a gov¬ ernment of national union and not that of a single man, Ali Aref finally understood that France had sharply decreased the support it had formerly lavished on him. Taking advan¬ tage of the prevailing disagreements between Giscardians and Gaullists, Ali Aref made an appeal to the latter and took ex¬ ception to the new views of Olivier Stirn. Reacting more strongly, he said he would accept only the verdict of a vote and would not yield to pressure exerted by any individual. As we have seen, 24 this situation was resolved by his res¬ ignation. It was not until the end of October that the cabinet, after listening to Olivier Stirn’s analysis of the current situ¬ ation, made the decision to hold a referendum in the spring of 19 77--without, however, setting the date--and to follow it up with the election of a constituent assembly. The cabinet was also pleased to note that the territory was politically tranquil. These preliminaries to a change of regime were followed by Stirn's trip to Djibouti, on which he was accom¬ panied by a sizable group of associates. The working ses¬ sions held there with the territorial leaders were focused on two kinds of problems: finding a solution for the most burn¬ ing questions of the day and preparing dossiers related to

70

Dj ibouti

independence. These included the future of Metropolitan French residents, the bases for concluding possible economic and military cooperation agreements, and the drafting of a budget to cope with the economic crisis. For the present, the French government granted 6. 5 million French francs in aid, of which 4 million (143 million FD) were made immedi¬ ately available for urban public works and sanitation and elec¬ trification projects. The remaining 2. 5 million were to be allocated a little later to agricultural irrigation. Soon afterward, Stirn announced that a second meeting would be held at Paris in January that this time would include not only all the TFAI political parties but also certain organi¬ zations based abroad (the FLCS and MLD). A week after Stirn's return to Paris, the National Assembly adopted with¬ out much opposition a draft law providing for the referendum that had already been approved by the Senate in mid-December. Time, however, did not clarify the situation in the TFAI, as had been hoped. Ali Aref's return after five months in France aroused the curiosity of observers lest a coup d'dtat might be in the making, because it coincided with that of General Vatinelle, former president of the Chamber of Deputies. Other developments included quarrels inside the UNI (when Omar Farah Iltere contested the election of a new executive committee headed by the former secretary general, Ahmed Youssouf Ahmed); discord sown by the new opposition forces in the Chamber; disturbances caused by those forces at the meetings for national unity organized by the LPAI at Dikhil, Ali Sabieh, and Tadjoura (where two persons were injured); an attack upon Senator Barkad Gourat, who, at a meeting in front of the Palais de Justice a few days after his marriage, received serious head injuries and was flown to France for treatment; and finally agitation among students and elsewhere. So troubled was the situation that Stirn post¬ poned the Paris conference, noting that the mechanism in¬ volved in granting independence to the TFAI presented knotty problems. However, the projected conference was able to begin on February 28. It was generally believed that the referendum would be held on April 24, 1977, and all agreed that the proclamation of independence would take place some¬ time between June 20 and 30. The delegates who attended the Paris meeting were Abdallah Mohamed Kamil and three of his ministers; Hassan Gouled, Ahmed Dini, and four other representatives of the

Viewpoints on Independence

71

LPAI; Barkad Gourat and three deputies from the majority party; Omar Farah Iltere and three members of the UNI splinter group loyal to him; seven observers, most of whom were members of the LPAI or ministers who had resigned from the previous government; and a delegation of the FLOS from Mogadiscio. Most of the UNI members, headed by Ah¬ med Youssouf, refused to attend, as did the MLD of Ethiopia and the MPL of Djibouti. At the Paris conference of February, the delegates, after discussing ways of carrying out the referendum, took up questions concerning the territory's future political struc¬ ture. For the French government, this was perhaps the last chance it would have to exert any influence in that "tormented and coveted" region, and also for the future state to protect itself from the voracity of neighboring countries or interna¬ tional competitors. In any case there was no question for the Paris conferees of doing more than laying a foundation and establishing a working basis for the future. Neverthe¬ less, it was clear that the signing of documents (concerning temporary measures, cooperation projects, and the dossier of the Franco-Ethiopian railroad) that would be binding on the signatories could be done only after independence was definitively proclaimed. As the days passed, the negotia¬ tions, which had begun under favorable conditions, proved to be long and difficult. After an initial interruption caused by disagreement over holding the legislative elections at the same time as the referendum, the delegates balked at the French govern¬ ment's proposal to increase the Chamber of Deputies' mem¬ bership from forty to sixty-two and to maintain the five ex¬ isting electoral circumscriptions. This led to the withdrawal of the Mogadiscio delegation, whose spokesman, Ahmed Mohamed Hassen, said that his party found it unacceptable and that "we want a free nation without any tribal basis. " A few days later, the secretary of state for the DOM/TOM proposed a single electoral circumscription, but now it was Barkad Gourat who rebelled, on the ground that for truly democratic representation each cercle must become an electoral circum¬ scription. "In my view, " he told the press, "independence has got off to a bad start," and after that outburst he re¬ turned to Djibouti without consenting to sign the session's closing communique. As of March 18, only Premier Kamil and the leaders of the LPAI remained to endorse the French proposals. Through their spokesman, Ahmed Dini, they de¬ clared themselves satisfied, although they had no illusions

72

Dj ibouti

as to the difficulties that lay ahead. Neither Kamil nor Dini were wholeheartedly approved by the groups they led, and sev¬ eral ministers and an LPAI party leader were among the hardliners. Despite such opposition, resolutions to the fol¬ lowing effect were passed at the Paris conference: (1) All the delegates expressed a preference for a parliamentary democracy which, in principle, would consider France to be a privileged partner. (2) Agreement on the date of the referendum. (3) The holding of elections to the Chamber of Depu¬ ties on the.same day as the referendum. (4) The adoption of a single electoral circumscription for the entire TFAI. (5) If the electorate opted for independence, it was to be proclaimed on June 27. The Paris government quickly followed up on the points discussed at the March meeting by publishing in the Journal Officiel dated April 1 and 2, 1977, a series of measures de¬ scribed below; (1) Decree no. 77-240 of March 28 defined the pro¬ cedure for holding the referendum and greatly simplified the phrasing of the question to be put before the electorate: "Do you want the TFAI to become independent?" Voters favoring inde¬ pendence would use a white ballot; those opposed, a pink ballot. (2) Decree no. 77-341, also dated March 28, set Sunday, May 8, as the date for the referendum and named members of the commission that would take a census and count the votes. (3) Regulation no. 77-355, dated April 1, altered the existing circumscriptions for the election of depu¬ ties. The Chamber would have 65 members elec¬ ted from a single circumscription. Deputies would be chosen in a single round (i. e., without a run¬ off) from a majority slate, without crossovers or proportional representation. Among the sixty-five names listed on each competing slate must be in¬ cluded twelve registered candidates from the dis¬ trict of Djibouti, twelve from Tadjoura cercle, twelve from Dikhil cercle, and six each from the cercles of Ali Sabieh and Obock. In this respect, it should be noted that, contrary to the last legis¬ lative elections, greater political importance was restored to Djibouti as compared with the hinterland. In 1973, the respective proportions

Viewpoints on Independence

(4)

73

had been roughly one to two, whereas in 1977 it would be about three to four. Finally, a decree of April 1 dissolved the existing Chamber.

During the Paris discussions, it was evident that the divergency of views was such as to make future conferences difficult, and this was the case of the OAU meeting held at the end of March in Accra. The OAU had invited to this meeting representatives of all the political movements in the TFAI and those based abroad. Representatives from the Dji¬ bouti government and from the six political groups who had gone to Paris were unable to reconcile the differences that had prevented their agreement in mid-March. However, at the end of the sessions and after listening to an appeal made by the chairman of the meeting, they agreed in principle to unite in a "Front Uni Patriotique" and in a committee to co¬ ordinate preparations for the referendum. In itself, this rep¬ resented progress and a start toward establishing confidence among those meeting at Accra, and it remained to translate this into concrete achievements in terms of local action.

The Referendum of May 8,

1977

In view of the tone of public meetings, the well-known stands of politicians, and the last-minute statements by party leaders, no great surprises were to be expected from the referendum. Votes cast in favor of independence totaled 75, 405 (94. 51 per¬ cent of the electorate), and those against 204 (0. 25 percent). Of the 110,954 registered voters, 79,789 went to the polls, 26 overall participation thus being 71. 91 percent. The percent¬ age of voters was clearly higher in Djibouti than in the hin¬ terland, as can be seen from the following figures: Djibouti, 92. 2 percent; Dikhil, 66. 9 percent; Tadjoura, 42. 1 percent; Ali Sabieh, 83. 7 percent; and Obock, 74. 3 percent. On the principle of independence there was almost unanimous agree¬ ment, although the voters in Tadjoura had misgivings and those in Dikhil displayed a surprising indifference. The num¬ ber of electors as compared with that at the time of the pres¬ idential elections of April 1974 had grown by exactly 61, 927 or 126 percent. This suggested considerable participation in the vote by those living along the frontiers and by the seminomads. As to the composition of the new Chamber, there were also no great surprises. Even though only one slate--that of

74

Dj ibouti

the Rassemblement Populaire pour l'Inddpendance—was sub¬ mitted, it failed to win all the votes cast. It comprised thirty-three Somalis and Issas, thirty Afars, and two Arabs, among whom were to be found most of the ministers in the Kamil government, a dozen deputies, and six FLCS militants (former expatriates who had returned from Mogadiscio). No members of the UNI--the party of Ali A ref, Omar Farah IItere, and Ahmed Youssouf Ahmed--or of the MPL or the MLD were included in the slate. In view of this line-up, it was easy for critics to draw two conclusions—first, that the debates in the new Chamber would be controlled by the Somali deputies, and second, that the unity desired by all was so flawed as to make it unlikely that the country would enjoy an untroubled future. Of the 81, 466 electors, the single slate won 75, 332 votes, which meant a 92. 47 percent parti¬ cipation. From the standpoint of representation, there was one seat for every 797 voters in Djibouti, and one for every 833 in the rural areas, the latter thus being comparatively poorly represented. On May 13, in a special session of the Chamber, Ah¬ med Dini was elected its president, and the following week the provisional government council was formed. Its ten mem¬ bers, on a single slate, were elected by fifty-three deputies, or four-fifths of the Chamber. In the distribution of port¬ folios, Hassan Gouled Aptidon became premier and in charge of cooperation and the port; Abdallah Mohamed Kamil, min¬ ister of planning and development; Moumin Bahdon Farah, interior; Omar Kamil Worsama, public works; Idriss Farah Abane, the rural economy; Mohamed Ahmed Issa, education; Hassan Mohamed Farah, labor; and Ibrahim Mohamed Sultan, finance. ^7 Among these men were six LPAI leaders but no FLCS militant. Barkad Gourat himself did not expect to be among those chosen. Hassan Gouled emerged the great win¬ ner in this situation, taking the first step up the ladder lead¬ ing to the highest honors and also to heavy responsibilities. Thus, on June 27, 1977, independence came to the territory at the same time as the hot season, and France lowered its last flag in Africa. Would there still be room for a French pennant on the oucha2^ of the Djibouti republic? It is not unthinkable that the "wise and prudent" Hassan Gou¬ led might accept that possibility, and there is little doubt but that Paris clung to a slight hope that such would be the case.

Viewpoints on Independence

75

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

Jeune Afrique, Dec. 7, 1974. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, May 3, 1975. Televised interview, Oct. 12, 1975. Televised interview, Jan. 18, 1976. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, July 3, 1976. Ibid. , July 10, 1976. At Dakar, the French president was able to demonstrate to the Africans that, even without unanimity on politi¬ cal concepts, understanding and collaboration were possible. Senegal's president, Leopold S. Senghor, capped this by urging that no effort be spared to pre¬ vent the African continent from being divided between partisans of the eastern and western blocs. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, Dec. 20, 1975. Televised interview, Dec. 31, 1975. Televised interview, July 28, 1975. Jeune Afrique, Oct. 31, 1975. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, July 17, 1976. Ibid. , Aug. 30, 1976. Ibid., Mar. 29, 1976. Televised interview, Dec. 29, 1975. Televised interview, Jan. 11, 1976. See page 19. Televised interview, Jan. 18, 1976. Televised interview, Jan. 29, 1976. France-Soir, Nov. 6, 1975; televised interview, Dec. 1, 1975. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, May 3, 1975. Televised interview, Dec. 1, 1975. See page 42. See page 43. See page 34. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, May 10 and 14, 1977. Ibid., May 21, 1977. " A staff or cane, in the Somali dialect.

.

5.

THE TERRITORY’S POSITION BETWEEN AFRICA AND ASIA

Ethiopia Ethiopia, a mosaic of many tribes, has devoted itself for more than a century to preserving the unity that the Emperor Theodorus began to create. To the east the Afars and Issas, to the south the Gallas, and to the north the Eritreans in¬ creasingly disputed the traditional suzerainty of the Amharas. To be sure, the Issas, unlike the other Somali tribes, had supported the Ethiopians against the Italians from 1935 to 1939, but after the war the revival of armed raids following periods of drought had led to bloody clashes between the Is¬ sas and the Ethiopians. The Issa region, which extends from west of Djibouti eastward to the foothills of the Tchercher massif near Gotha-Errer, straddled the political and artificial Franco-Ethiopian frontier. That ethnic region was a reality that the French and Ethiopian governments would be compelled to take into consideration when the question of independence of the TFAI came up. Unlike the Issas, the Assahyamara Afars of Aoussa, vassals of the Addis Ababa government and residing in Wallo province, had shown some fellow-feeling for the Italians, who occupied Ethiopia from 1935 to 1939. They had been only too pleased to take advantage of the Fascists' agression by joining them in infiltrating the regions of Gobad and Hanl6. However, after the Second World War, when the Ethiopians reestablished their suzerainty over Aoussa, they had no trouble with the Afars there, for they were adroit enough to keep the local sultan on a loose rein so as to avoid any conflict with him. On his eastern flank, the sultan of Aoussa remained aloof 77

78

Dj ibouti

from the French, who to him were always more of a nuisance than adversaries, and enjoying a semi-independence he ruled his province as he pleased. The overthrow of the Negus in 1974 brought disturb¬ ances to Aoussa. After the road from Assab to Dessid was damaged so as to prevent oil supplies from reaching Addis Ababa, agitation became widespread in the feudal domain of Sultan Ali Mira, especially when the Ethiopian Military Coun¬ cil decreed agrarian reform in 1975. The transfer of private property to the people without compensation was scarcely sat¬ isfactory to the sultan, who was head of the Ethiopian Afars. His followers, supported by Eritrean refugees, began to clash violently with the Ethiopian forces, beginning in May of that year. Having refused to accept the new order of affairs, Ali Mira saved his life by fleeing to Djibouti early in June, accompanied by many attendants and partisans. After re¬ maining there nearly a week, he flew to Saudi Arabia. Nev¬ ertheless, the followers he left behind in Aoussa did not give up the fight, and they continued guerrilla operations, as evi¬ denced by their periodic attacks on convoys moving along the road between Assab and Addis Ababa. The fighting in Janu¬ ary 1976 left more than 100 dead, and thirty trucks filled with provisions were destroyed in attacks in October. A camp for 400 persons had to be set up at Dikhil for refugees from Aoussa and Eritrea. One-fourth of Eritrea, which lies to the north of the TFAI, is inhabited by Afars, and what happens in Eritrea may influence the attitude of the Addis Ababa government toward the state that is successor to the TFAI. During Haile Selassie's time, the more distant Gallas had no direct contacts with the TFAI. Humble shepherds from time immemorial, they were, nevertheless, responsible for a very old civilization that is spread throughout most of the Horn of Africa. After two centuries of fighting against the Amharas, they were finally absorbed into Menelik's em¬ pire in 1876. By the twentieth century, they had come to hold important positions in the Ethiopian Parliament and in the ministries. Because of their capacity for self-development and their adaptability, the Galla elite constituted an active element in the Ethiopian revolution. Concerned about the spread of the Eritrean revolt and permanently on guard in the Ogaden, Ethiopia was pleased by the outcome of the March 1967 referendum in the TFAI, de¬ spite Addis Ababa's pro forma claim to their territory. That

The Territory's Position

79

trade between the two countries remained unaffected by the events of 1966-67 in the TFAI was indicated by the conclu¬ sion of agreements between Ethiopian bankers and the Dji¬ bouti Chamber of Commerce in March 1968.1 The next year, France rose to fifth position among Ethiopia's foreign clients, taking more than 3 percent of that country's exports, and at that time France also supplied more than 5 percent of Ethio¬ pia's imports. After the disruption experienced in the Middle East and Red Sea countries because of closure of the Suez Canal in 1967, trade was gradually restored. Relations be¬ tween the two countries remained untroubled during this peri¬ od, and contacts between their respective leaders occurred fairly often. Cultural and technical cooperation had long ex¬ isted between France and Ethiopia, and it expanded consider¬ ably with the increase in trade, the activities of the Alliance Franqaise in Addis Ababa, and the De Gaulle/Haile Selassie agreements of Avgust 1966. President Pompidou, after his visit to the TFAI in January 1973, was the official guest of the Ethiopian government. For that government, France's remaining in the Horn of Africa guaranteed freedom of navi¬ gation through the southern outlet of the Red Sea and to some degree allayed its chronic fears of being encircled by Mus¬ lims. The annual "Navy Day" parade at Massaoua, in which a French squadron participated, marked the last meeting be¬ tween the emperor and the TFAI authorities. That celebra¬ tion had barely ended when the crew of the ship Ethiopia mu¬ tinied, and Admiral ISkandar Desta, grandson of the emperor, took refuge on a minesweeper that turned up in the vicinity of Perim Island after a mysterious tour in which it ran out of fuel. The admiral was rescued there by a navy vessel from Djibouti, and his sojourn in the TFAI capital, less os¬ tentatious than his reception there in 1969, was more or less disguised as an official visits He returned to Addis Ababa, where he did not survive the Ethiopian empire, for he was among the sixty civilian and military persons executed in November 1974. In the interval, the Ethiopia was trans¬ formed into a naval-training vessel and, ignoring events else¬ where, it paid a courtesy call at Djibouti, thus showing the good will of the new Ethiopian government toward the TFAI authorities. The military junta's seizure of power threatened to create new problems for Djibouti's political leaders. Yet, throughout 1975, they were pleased by several evidences of the junta's good intentions. Among them was a statement by

80

Dj ibouti

the foreign minister, Ato Kifle Wodajo, who declared that his country "would accept the decision of the TFAI population should it opt for independence" and that the Ethiopian nation would be satisfied by an acknowledgment of Ethiopia's positive "economic interest in that region. Then at the OAU meet¬ ing in Kampala, the Ethiopians were the only delegates who voted against a resolution condemning France. Furthermore, General Teferi Bente, president of the Ethiopian Revolution¬ ary Council, publicly renounced all historical claims to the TFAI and said that his government would abide strictly by the decision of that territory even if it decided to remain united with France. He did, however, add that in case the TFAI seceded, Ethiopia's policy would be determined by that of Somalia. In view of the excessive nature of Somalia's claims, it was to be feared that there might be a repetition of the 1967 situation, when Ethiopian troops were massed at Daouenld. This attitude of the Ethiopian Revolutionary Council substantiated a report that circulated at the end of 1975 to the effect that Addis Ababa had discreetly asked France for arms. Actually, granting such a request would mean no more than continuing the practice of the past few years in the delivery of arms that enabled France in East Africa to resolve the Djibouti problem, if not provide the means to do so. The Metropole, however, was fully aware that such ne¬ gotiations were a two-edged sword, given the behavior of the Somali republic and perhaps that of the Eritrean Liberation Front. For example, the latter periodically threatened to attack the Dj ibouti-Addis Ababa railroad if it continued to transport military supplies. Such was the state of affairs in October 1975, when Ali Aref, accompanied by two ministers and two deputies, was received by General Teferi Bente and thus had the op¬ portunity to form an opinion regarding the views of the Ethio¬ pian revolutionaries. Ali Aref's visit was an event whose importance could be appreciated only by the initiated, for in the emperor's time the TFAI prime minister had never gone to Ethiopia. On the agenda of these talks with the new Ethio¬ pian leaders was the subject of Aoussa and, in this connec¬ tion, the attachment of the Afar rebels in Ethiopia's eastern province to their former leader, Ali Mira, now in exile at Jeddah. Although Ali Aref had felt obliged to welcome that sultan warmly when he passed through Djibouti, he was care¬ ful not to offer him prolonged hospitality. Indeed, it was difficult for Ali Aref to reconcile a rapprochement with Addis

The Territory's Position

81

Ababa and the consideration that he could not refuse to show a great chief of his own tribe. Nevertheless, his statement at Addis Ababa concerning the "close and friendly relations that could be established between Ethiopia and the future sov¬ ereign state of Djibouti''^ brought down on his head the wrath of radical young Afars. They were angered by Ali Aref's conciliatory attitude toward the Dergue, 4 whose troops were "slaughtering their brothers" at the gateway to the TFAI. At this time the most contradictory reports circulated in Djibouti as to the confused situation in Aoussa, where the Assahyamara Afars were rumored to have received military aid from Somalia. This might seem surprising, but--given the anarchic situation--the rumor could have had its roots in the old image of a Muslim union confronted by an Ethiopia guarding the Christian faith, notwithstanding the temporary muzzling of its clergy. Yet, this was not the basic question for Ali Aref, who tried to explain his statement away by say¬ ing that it would have been "ungracious" on his part to "med¬ dle in Ethiopian affairs. " At all events, the TFAI delegation at Addis Ababa found itself in the presence not only of the head of the Ethiopian government but also of the UN secre¬ tary general and foreign diplomats. The delegates said that this audience listened with understanding to their views on the territory's future status. The members of the Dergue, for their part, restated the position that they had taken at the OAU meeting--i. e., that they renounced all historical claims to the TFAI. There is no doubt but that the Ethiopians wanted peace along their eastern and southern frontiers, as well as pres¬ ervation of their access to Djibouti, which France had never denied them and which might be jeopardized if the French left. They also wanted the continuation of French aid, which amounted to 20 million French francs in 1974-75 and which they succeeded in getting renewed in 1976 for another twoyear period. Their policy became clearer in the UN at the end of 1975 and in the OAU council of foreign ministers two months later. On the first occasion, they opposed a UN resolution because it "contained no demand that Somalia abandon its claims to the TFAI. ”5 Then, at the OAU meet¬ ing, General Teferi Bente asked that organization, first, to encourage the opposing groups in the TFAI to engage in ne¬ gotiations with the government, and next to provide an ade¬ quate guarantee for its future independence. In short, it seemed clear that if the French territory was not taken over by Somalia as a result of its people's expressed wish or of

82

Djibouti

a more or less disguised intervention, socialist Ethiopia, like its imperial predecessor, would make no move. Nor did the 1974 political upheaval in Ethiopia affect in any way that country's dealings with France. During the troubles in Eritrea early in 1975, there was no difficulty in evacuating to Addis Ababa the thirty or so French residents of Asmara. The only change noted at Djibouti was the trans¬ fer of the Ethiopian consul to the post of minister of informa¬ tion at Addis Ababa. In Paris, at the end of 1975, the new Ethiopian ambassador presented his letters of credence to President Giscard d'Estaing, to whom this gave the opportu¬ nity to remind the diplomat of his intention to respect the will of the TFAI’s inhabitants, as expressed through free elections, and also to guarantee their security. It might be noted that the widespread nationalizations undertaken by the revolutionary government had not included the Djibouti-Addis Ababa railroad, which for all practical purposes was already under Ethiopian control at all levels of operation. As in the days of the empire, the high commissioner of the TFAI kept his post as a member of the railroad's board of di¬ rectors. As independence drew near, the French government again became concerned in regard to the attitude of the TFAl's neighbors, believing correctly that the new developments in the territory since the end of 1976 had some bearing on their policies. In any case, it seemed desirable on the eve of a turning point in local history to sound out the latest intentions of the states in the Horn of Africa. Consequently, the secre¬ tary of state for foreign affairs, Pierre-Christian Taittinger, was charged with resuming the series of visits to that region that had been initiated early in 1976 by Jean Fran$ois-Poncet. 6 Accompanied by High Commissioner d'Ornano, he went to Addis Ababa, where the two emissaries held conversations with various Ethiopian ministers and the ambassadors of the two countries concerned. The only clue to these talks was the sacrosanct formula that they had taken place "in an at¬ mosphere of mutual understanding" and Taittinger's broadcast to the effect that "there are no misunderstandings between France and Ethiopia. " If he ever received assurances as to the future of the TFAI, they did not dispel French doubts, which were caused by the appeals made to the Afars over Radio Addis Ababa, urging them to offer resistance to the TFAI Somalis, and by the arms that the Ethiopians reportedly sent to some Afar groups.

The Territory's Position

83

Somalia Immediately after the referendum of March 1967, Somalia was careful not to show the relief it probably felt, along with Ethiopia and most of the world powers. At international con¬ ferences, it continued to rail against the "colonialist oppres¬ sor. " Three weeks before the TFAI’s new statute became effective, Aden Abdulla Osman was overthrown at Mogadiscio and was succeeded by Abderachid Ali Shermake, who made Mohamed Ibrahim Egal his prime minister. The new leaders, taking up where the preceding government left off, got the UN at the end of 1967 to approve still another resolution demand¬ ing that the decolonization of the French territory and its in¬ dependence be expedited. Meanwhile, in September 1968, the Somali prime minister, well known for his skill as a diplo¬ mat, assured General de Gaulle of Somalia's good intentions regarding the TFAI. He acknowledged France's presence at Djibouti and the new form of administration that had just been inaugurated there. This recognition was somewhat unexpected, and it constituted, to some degree, Somalia's acceptance of the territory's new statute. There is no doubt but that the Somalis who seized power in July 1967 had not renounced the territorial claims that were based on their separation from their 350, 000 "eth¬ nic brothers, " but they seemed to have recognized the use¬ lessness of an excessive irredentism. That irredentist policy derived from the Bevin plan put forward by the British twenty years before, and it was reinforced by the coming to power in 1960 of the president of newly independent Somalia. For seven years, Aden Abdulla Osman had made irredentism his battle cry, launching fruitless guerrilla operations along So¬ malia's frontiers with Kenya and Ethiopia. After his eclipse, American aid, which had been rejected as the result of mis¬ understandings in favor of Soviet assistance, enabled Mogadis¬ cio to revive its economy. In addition to the Americans, Somalia interested the Italians and British in its public-works programs. At the time, it stopped its anti-French propaganda campaign aimed at the TFAI. The outcome of the 1967 referendum in Dji¬ bouti had certainly affected the Somalis' dream of hegemony. The ensuing ddtente gave satisfaction to Djibouti, where it manifested itself in ways that would have been inconceivable a few years earlier. In mid-19 69, a Somali consul was posted to Djibouti and a French consul to Mogadiscio. The first air service between the two capitals was inaugurated

84

Dj ibouti

in August in the presence of a large delegation of Somali technicians. ^ The takeover of the Supreme Council of the Revolution by the pro-Soviet General Syaad Barre, after the assassina¬ tion of Ali Sharmake in October 1969 and the dissolution of all the Somali political parties, seemed not to have caused a change in the attitude of Somalia toward the French terri¬ tory. When Henry Rey, secretary of state for the DOM/TOM, came to Djibouti at the end of 1969, he met the Somali re¬ public's representative,, who again expressed his country’s wish to maintain cordial relations with France. He said that "these relations should not be affected by General Syaad Barre*s coming to power. "8 To be sure, the attack at the Palmier en Zinc in January 1970)9 interjected a discordant element into Franco-Somalian relations. However, the con¬ sul of Somalia publicly censured the recent criminal actions by Somalis, adding that his government was "in no way re¬ sponsible for such activities. "10 He took this opportunity to reiterate his country's desire to collaborate with France. In October, the Somali colony in the TFAI celebrated for the first time the anniversary of the revolution in Somalia at its Djibouti consulate. This kind of social gathering, sometimes accompanied by folk dances, was repeated each year with a degree of cordiality that varied with the course of events. In 1973, reassurances of his country's friendship were again expressed by a Somali minister charged with a mission to President Pompidou on the eve of the latter's departure for Djibouti. It will be recalled that that trip was not marred by any anti-French demonstrations or disturbances, such as had occurred during General de Gaulle's visit. This may have been the result of orders from the Mogadiscio govern¬ ment, which intended to maintain control of the movements to which it had given asylum. A few months after President Pompidou's visit to the TFAI, his aide, Jacques Foccart, was sent in mid-April 1973 on a mission to Mogadiscio, and he returned very satisfied with the welcome accorded him by the president of Somalia. General Syaad Barre, using a cus tomary formula, expressed the hope that "a better under¬ standing would be reached" between France and his country. H The year 1974 began in the same atmosphere of en¬ tente. The TFAI was connected with Mogadiscio by radio¬ telephone, and there were some cultural exchanges. Shortly afterward, the Somali consulate at Djibouti was raised to the rank of consulate general. It was during this tranquil period,

The Territory's Position

85

which lasted until almost the end of 1974, that the standing of the FLCS, based at Mogadiscio, underwent a sharp de¬ cline. Although that organization's presence was still toler¬ ated in Somalia, it could be said that, at least officially, the Mogadiscio government no longer supported it. However, it should be noted in passing that the recurrent Franco-Somali rapprochements never induced the heads of the French state to accept any of the many invitations they received to visit Somalia, and it was felt that the two countries were not in total agreement. On the other hand, in October 1964 General Syaad Barre went to Paris, where he was preceded by his new ambassador, Mohamed Said Samantar. The latter, in presenting his credentials to the French president, did not fail to stress the identity of views held by Somalia and France concerning the TFAl's right to self-determination. The impression left by the Somali president's visit to Paris was that, for the first time in several years, the peak of bonhomie had been passed. To be sure, the formal ceremonial theme of good relations was sounded, but so was that of the right to independence of the "Somali Coast. " That term, dear to the dissidents at Mogadiscio, was less diplo¬ matic than the expression "French Somali Coast" used by President Barre. Although the dissidents made a point of omitting any reference to the territory's belonging to France, Barre seemed to ignore the presence there of the Afars. In¬ deed, the French authorities stressed on every occasion that the last referendum, in March 1967, was the only plebiscite that counted. When Syaad Barre courteously asked Giscard to review France's position with regard to the TFAI, it be¬ came evident that neither side was listening to the other. With respect to Djibouti: until recently, the Somali republic's principal port, at Mogadiscio, was sanded up and without proper protection from the winds and the monsoon. Compelled to transfer merchandise and passengers to barges plying between the wharves and the ships anchored in the open sea, the companies at Mogadiscio that were charged with that operation were still, in 1947, in a situation identi¬ cal with the one that had existed in Djibouti in 1939-40. The other ports of the Somali coast--Kisimayu, Merca, and Berbera--were less important and more specialized than that of Mogadiscio. Nevertheless, Berbera, thanks to the work of Soviet technicians, was in the process of becoming a mod¬ ern military roadstead where Soviet ships could drop anchor. Somalia denied that the Russians were installed there with¬ out, however, denying its existence as a real base.

86

Dj ibouti

The highly specialized equipment of Berbera did not prevent the commercial port of Djibouti, completed and in perfect condition, from being a temptation to the Somalis. This was due not only to its modern facilities but also to its location at the southern end of the Red Sea and to the control it could exercise over the economy of Ethiopia by means of the Dj ibouti-Addis Ababa railroad. That potential control was not unrelated to the century-old dream of hegemony directed against the Ethiopian Christians. In the economic domain, it is to be noted that trade between the Somali republic and the TFAI was meager by sea and confined to small amounts of shoddy goods by land. 12 With regard to the ethnic question, social scientists waxed indignant when the Mogadiscio leaders used the racial argument to justify their claims on lands where Somali mi¬ norities lived. They declared that it was not until recently that the Somali tribes had exerted any pressure on the native populations of neighboring countries. In the TFAI, a shift in population did not occur until the end of the nineteenth century, when the hard-pressed Afars had to yield land and withdraw northward. (As of 1885, it was still an Afar, Aboubaker Ibrahim Pacha, who was governor at Zeila. ) Moreover, the invasion by the Issack-Darod and Gadaboursi, who were British subjects, occurred between 1950 and 1960, and that of foreign laborers attracted to Djibouti by that town's expansion, took place between 1960 and 1966. Those migrations clearly demonstrate the interest foreigners had, and still have, in the haven of security represented by the former French territory. Population statistics would show the large dimensions of that influx of outsiders, which the well-publicized barrier placed around Djibouti in 1967 had difficulty in controlling. When the TFAI authorities took drastic measures to expel those immigrants, the neighboring republic, which had initially opposed the Djibouti government's refusal to receive on its soil "a few poor nomad herders," itself became wor¬ ried by the return of hordes of its nationals and decided to put a stop to it. The French authorities therefore had to house these semiexpatriates, the cause of whose emigration was not known--whether it had been due to seeking well-paid jobs or a refusal to live under the new socialist regime of their country. To accommodate them, a village was built six kilometers south of Djibouti, and Mogadiscio at once called it the "ghetto of Balbala. " This truly strange situation ended in late January 1976, when the TFAI authorities evacuated

The Territory's Position

87

some thousands of persons from the village and escorted them to the frontier. Critics were quick to point out that the Somali republic twisted facts to suit its policy, wanting control of its nation¬ als along with that of the land on which they had been living. Mogadiscio seemed to believe so strongly in its inherent right to such land that it extended this to include foreign areas, such as the Afar country. This was indeed the case when Somalia's irredentism focused on the TFAI, for it included the whole country and not just the Issa region. Observers continued to speculate as to what were the exact goals of the Somalis, and how the Afars, if not the Issas, would react to socialist ideology and "voluntary" work on the land. In any case, the spirit of collaboration between the TFAI and its neighbor, which had prevailed before 1974, underwent a change early in 1975, concurrently with a change in the at¬ titude of the subversive movements in Mogadiscio and even that of the Somali authorities. Furthermore, it was the lat¬ ter who again began to challenge the situation created in the TFAI by the statute of July 1967. We now come to the kidnapping of Jean Gueury, the French ambassador to Somalia, by FLCS commandos on March 23, 1975. For five days, the public in France learned with concern about the comings and goings of the plane that shuttled between Mogadiscio, Aden, Djibouti, and Cairo, sometimes carrying the French diplomat and his abductors and at other times two Somalis who had been imprisoned in France. The latter were to be exchanged for the ambassa¬ dor, in a deal arranged by Mohamed Said Samantar, Somal¬ ia's ambassador to Paris. In addition, the Metropole paid 420, 000 francs in gold bars, supplied the necessary air transport, and turned over to the kidnappers their compatri¬ ots, Omar Osman Rabeh and Omar Elmi Kaireh. These two men were well known in Djibouti, and their background deserves a brief description. Omar Osman Rabeh had been a militant in the Parti du Mouvement Populaire (PMP) since adolescence and was politically very active in Mogadiscio, where he became vicepresident of the FLCS. In 1966, while a student in Djibouti, he was arrested for subversive activities and charged with attempting to undermine the security of the state. He was later freed but was arrested again in May 1968 for allegedly having taken part in a plot against Ali Aref, a charge that he always denied. He was sentenced to death--a sentence

88

Dj ibouti

that was commuted by General de Gaulle to life imprison¬ ment in France. In Somalia, which had given him protection, he was naturally regarded as a hero. Yet, he seems not to have been considered, at least during his early activities in Mogadiscio, as a hardliner, if one can judge by interviews carried in the press and on television. In a broadcast in December 1975 by a regional television station in France, he said, "My desire is that the TFAI should not attain inde¬ pendence in a spirit of hatred, and we have the duty of avoid¬ ing a war. " Within less than a year, however, he seemed to have undergone a complete change of heart. After the ar¬ rest of his colleague, Aden Roble Awale, ^ he advocated a struggle to the bitter end, by armed force if necessary. As for Omar Elmi Kaireh, he was a man of quite a different caliber. By his own account a militant of the FLCS, he had thrown a hand grenade into a Djibouti restaurant, wounding eighteen persons. After Ambassador Gueury was freed and had returned to France, Minister of the Interior Poniatowski stated publicly that "the Somali government is wholly responsible for the at¬ tack on Jean Gueury. " As is well known, the security of a foreign diplomat is the responsibility of the government to which he is accredited. A formal protest by the French government was immediately handed to the Somali ambassa¬ dor to Paris. For his part, President Syaad Barre expressed his personal regrets to President Giscard d’Estaing, and in the ensuing months he stated again that Somalia had no ter¬ ritorial designs on the TFAI. Referring to socialism's re¬ jection of all forms of colonialism, he expressed only the hope that the TFAI would become free and that its inhabitants, after their independence was proclaimed, would determine their own future by choosing their country's alignment. In any case, he said, he wanted to preserve the friendship of France. It was with this in view that, at the OAU meeting at Kampala in July 1975, he asked President HouphougtBoigny to use his good offices to create ddtente between Paris and Mogadiscio. According to the Somali leader, the only subject of dispute between the two governments was France's obstinacy in holding on to so small a country as the TFAI. Partisan of self-determination but not of a referen¬ dum, Syaad Barre again based his stand on the resolution that had been voted by the OAU to "support and provide lib¬ eration movements in the French territory with the material, moral, and diplomatic means necessary to attain their ob-

The Territory's Position

89

jective. "I4 He shared the widespread African view that France's presence in Djibouti was anachronistic and decided to write to the French president, expressing approval of the LPAI. Ignoring the existence of the legal government of the TFAI, he did not hesitate to outline in detail the ways and means that the president of France should consider in moving toward a decolonization of the territory. President Barre continued to express his concern with the manner in which France intended to decolonize the terri¬ tory. Extrapolating his thought, he claimed that the goal of the colonialists was to encircle Somalia so as to paralyze its revolution. He also refused to acknowledge the authority in the TFAI of Ali Aref, who was backed by the Metropole. In his view, Ali Aref did not represent the population and only the opposition parties were qualified to negotiate with Paris, directly if need be, without the holding of a referendum. The Somali president considered himself to be a champion of total demilitarization, claiming to be opposed to all forms of vio¬ lence and discounting the possibility of armed conflict in the Indian Ocean. He declared that guns were no solution to settling the problems between neighbors, 15 while himself accumulating Russian matdriel, tanks, planes, and missiles. Syaad Barre's enemies tried to discountenance him by re¬ minding him of a famous map of Somalia distributed in the schools and among the population, which proved, according to them, that he had annexationist goals. They also empha¬ sized some of his imprudent statements concerning Somalia's national emblem. Speaking of the five-pointed star, he said that it symbolized "the five parts of our country broken up by imperialism. " At the Addis Ababa meeting of the OAU foreign min¬ isters, which was held at the end of February 1976, the Somali delegate criticized the position of France in seeking a solution to the TFAI problem and demanded unconditional independence for the territory. Finally, at the June meeting of the OAU Liberation Committee in Dar es Salaam, an agree¬ ment was reached with some difficulty between the member countries to guarantee the sovereignty and integrity of the TFAI. Apparently, Somalia and Ethiopia had accepted the agreement, but a few weeks later, during the OAU summit meeting in Mauritius, the Ethiopian foreign minister announced that Somalia had refused to sign a joint statement with his country. At about the same time as Ali Aref's downfall, there

90

Dj ibouti

was a big shakeup in the leadership of Somalia. First came the replacement of the Supreme Revolutionary Council by a government council with a civilian majority, although the lat¬ ter remained under Syaad Barre’s control. Maintaining at the time that the French territory's unrest under Ali Aref was not of tribal origin but solely political, he said that he wanted to support the new TFAI premier, Abdalla Mohamed Kamil. This stand was quite the opposite of that taken by his Uganda colleague, Marshal Idi Amin Dada, who in fact believed that only a real revolutionary could succeed in free¬ ing Djibouti unconditionally. This was tantamount to saying in an unfriendly way that Kamil was not the man for that post. After Ali Aref's retirement from the political scene at Djibouti and the formation of the Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party at Mogadiscio, a turning point appeared to have been reached in the relations between the TFAI and So¬ malia. Following up on the French government's new policy of welcoming consulates from all countries at Djibouti, a Somali consul and vice-consul were posted to the consulate general there. From then on, that consulate general tried to revive to some extent the showy ceremonial of its annual receptions, which were held on the seventh anniversary of the Somali revolution. At the end of the year 1976, the So¬ mali government invited many prominent men of the TFAI, among them Senator Barkad Gourat and a Somali and an Afar minister, to participate in direct discussions concerning the future national unity of the TFAI. At this meeting, Barkad Gourat was reported to have spoken about the possibility of defense agreements with Somalia, but the senator later claimed that to be a misinterpretation of what he had said. In December 1976, it was learned that the Somali re¬ public, as a friendly gesture, had just arrested five FLCS leaders who had been preparing to smuggle arms into the TFAI for the purpose of terrorist action there. Those arrested were militants who undoubtedly considered that legal procedures for bringing independence to the territory were too slow, and among them were the FLCS president, Abdillahi Waberi Khalif, and the notorious Omar Osman Rabeh. 16 A few days after those arrests occurred, Djibouti was the scene of an incident that seemed disturbingly related to them: a grenade attack was made in a Djibouti bar, resulting in two deaths and fifteen injuries, almost all among soldiers from France. The motivation of the attack was quite obvious, although no one claimed responsibility for it. All the TFAI parties without

The Territory's Position

91

exception expressed their reprobation of that crime. New elections in the FLCS brought to the leadership of its execu¬ tive committee Omar Elmi Kai'reh and Aden Roble A wale, whose names gave pause but perhaps only because they sounded familiar. I? This sequence of events was probably disquieting to the secretary of state for the DOM /TOM, who had planned to invite the FLCS to a conference to be held at Paris in January 1977. During this period, Premier Kamil went to the Somali republic, at the end of December 1976. Accompanied by his wife, three ministers, and some high-ranking officials, he was warmly received at Mogadiscio by the authorities there at all levels. Kamil was assured by Syaad Barre that So¬ malia would respect the future independence of the TFAI and only wanted "friendly and fraternal" neighborly relations with it. Early in 1977, P. C. Taittinger, accompanied by High Commissioner d'Ornano, went on a mission to Addis Ababa^ and then to Mogadiscio. He met with fewer setbacks at the hands of Syaad Barre than had his predecessor, FrancoisPoncet. Somalia, through its spokesman the president, again declared that it intended to respect the territorial integrity of Djibouti. In this connection, commentators could not re¬ sist pointing out that the contacts made by various persons on both sides of the frontier, at both Addis Ababa and Mo¬ gadiscio, took place over the head of the new prime minister, just as had happened under the same conditions during the visits of Frangois-Poncet and Ali Aref about ten months ear¬ lier. This indicated an ambiguous attitude that could not fail to be interpreted in a sense unfavorable to the authority of Premier Kamil, whom his detractors saw as a prisoner of the parties sympathetic to the Somali republic. However that may be, the current situation was such that it offered the opportunity to establish economic relations such as had theretofore rarely existed. The shortage of some foodstuffs in Djibouti early in 1977, due either to the closing of some stores or to the difficulty of obtaining pro¬ visions from Ethiopia, impelled local traders to import goods from Somali cooperative societies, notably fresh vegetables and fruit. Nevertheless, Franco-Somali relations continued to experience ups and downs. During the first quarter of 1977, there occurred two serious incidents that arose from diverse interpretations of the limits of those countries' ter¬ ritorial waters. A Somali missile-launching vessel fired on

92

Dj ibouti

a French escort ship, and a MIG-17 attacked a Breguet plane. Although in neither case were there victims or damage, Paris lodged a strong protest with Mogadiscio.

The Two Yemens The departure of the British from the Federation of Southern Arabia in 1967 plunged the country into serious trouble. Big landowners, wealthy merchants, and bankers fled to neighbor¬ ing countries; internatiohal shipping lines stopped using the port; many emirates and sultanates simply disappeared; and business declined alarmingly. The closing of the Suez Canal contributed further to the stagnation. The port of Aden, which had been a formidable rival to Djibouti when it received an average of twenty to twenty-five ships a day, was by 1960 being used by only two or three vessels daily and a few coasters. The TFAI formerly had had close economic and financial relations with its British neighbor and, in fact, had become a sort of dependency of Aden’s trading companies, but with the advent of the new Yemen republic it regained full liberty of action. The port of Djibouti, whose modernization had been carefully planned, did not fail to benefit by the uncertainty surrounding Aden's evolution, but it could not count on doing so indefinitely. Some observers still doubted that the ships and businessmen would return and restore its former activity to Aden. This doubt, however, was not shared by other commercial specialists, who believed that changes in its trading pattern were inevitable and therefore turned to other forms of activity and different working methods. Moreover, it was easy to see that after the Suez Canal was reopened, traffic revived more quickly at Aden than at Djibouti. Although subversive elements from South Yemen were sometimes rumored to be in the TFAI, their presence was not visible in Djibouti, despite the reported existence at Aden of a nucleus of the FLCS. The presence there of such a group seemed probable, as there had always been a large Somali colony in the former British territory. Furthermore, early in 1968, the new republic proceeded to expel many of them, thereby indicating that it did not intend to follow the example of Somalia and adopt a strong stand on the problem of the TFAI. Some of its officials even desired a closer cultural cooperation with France, and such was the impres¬ sion of High Commissioner Dablanc when, at the end of 1974,

The Territory's Position

93

he paid a courtesy visit to President Salim Rubayya Ali. Two years later, that desire was expressed by Mohamed Saleh Mouti, the foreign minister of the People’s Democratic Re¬ public of Yemen, when he made an official visit to President Giscard d'Estaing. On the question of Djibouti, he suggested that it was up to all the countries that were neighbors of the TFAI to see that that territory achieved independence in peace and with dignity. South Yemen, he said, would not fail to collaborate in that respect, and the minister added that he was confident that France, which had the greatest responsi¬ bility in this matter, would do the same. At the time of Ambassador Gueury's kidnapping, the French authorities had occasion to note the Yemeni leaders' correct behavior. Although the plane carrying his captors was at first refused permission to land at Aden, the Yemeni authorities asserted that this was done to mark their "disap¬ proval of the capture of individuals. " When they realized, however, that the plane's prolonged circling endangered the lives of its passengers, they permitted it to land and allowed the negotiations to take place on their territory. The TFAI maintained tranquil if not close neighborly relations with South Yemen, and, on the economic level, coastal shipping and the trade in khat continued at the same steady tempo as had prevailed for many years. At the air¬ port, the bustling activity of the cargo handlers transferring that valuable drug, brought in by the planes of the Ethiopian Air Lines, to those of A1 Yemda (formerly Aden Airways) had become a commonplace sight. Trade between South Yem¬ en and France increased notably, and it more than quintupled between 1975 and 1976. As regards social welfare, France was among the countries that gave medical aid to South Yem¬ en, and in the technical domain, the French built a 125, 000kilowatt electric-generating plant in 1973. Toward the end of 1976, South Yemen sent la diplomatic representative to the TFAI. Since early 1972, there have been increasingly serious incidents along the frontier between the two Yemens, despite the efforts of Algeria to mediate between them. An abortive effort to join North and South Yemen in a new state to be called the Republic of Yemen was succeeded in 1974 by a coup d’dtat by North Yemen's army, which proclaimed the country to be "an Islamic, independent, republican, and Arab state. "

Dj ibouti

94

In February 1977, the question of Djibouti arose in the talks on cooperation held in Paris between a Yemeni emissary and French officials. The former reminded the French that his government had warmly welcomed France's efforts in the TFAI to maintain peace in the region while respecting the right's of the territory's peoples to self-determination. North Yemen had always been represented by a consul in Djibouti. (For a long time, there had been many North Yemenis in the TFAI, and recently they had numbered some 18, 000. ) France, on the other hand, did not name an ambassador to Sanaa until 1971, and the first fully .accredited Yemeni consul did not take up his post at Djibouti until nearly the end of 1972.

Saudi Arabia On many occasions, the Saudi Arabian government has sought cultural cooperation with France. In 1973, Robert Galley, minister of defense, went to Jeddah, and two years later, Paris was visited by Prince Fahd Ibn Abdul Aziz, strongman of the new regime, vice-premier, and brother of King Khalid. Aside from the inevitable subject of oil, his talks with Presi¬ dent Giscard d'Estaing and Premier Chirac were devoted largely to questions of general policy and technical aid. The participation of French experts from the Bureau des Recherches Gdologiques et Minieres in the operation of the Arabian oil¬ fields began at that period. In August 1976, Riyadh and Paris signed an important contract for installation of the French Secam color-television system and for extension of the tele¬ communications network in Saudi Arabia. Finally, the French president's visit to Saudi Arabia at the end of January 1977 was especially significant, coming as it did when that kingdom seemed eager to dissociate itself from the policy of other members of the OPEC. Inundated by dollars, Saudi Arabia has turned over large sums every year to the Arab League and has won through aid the good will of African and Asian states. It has not re¬ jected the possibility of investing funds in the TFAI and even of serving as its guarantor should that territory become inde¬ pendent. That is not to say that Saudi Arabia, like neighbor¬ ing Ethiopia, has looked with disfavor on France's remaining in the Horn of Africa, for it has regarded the French pre¬ sence there as providing a kind of insurance that the Red Sea zone would remain at peace. The motivation attributed to Ali A ref was implicit in

The Territory's Position

95

his policy of escaping domination by Somali socialism and, by extension, avoiding financial dependence on the USSR or China. To prevent the TFAl's being swallowed up after France had agreed to give it full independence, Ali Aref be¬ lieved he could strengthen his position by turning to his fellow Muslims in the north rather than to those in the south. This tactic had already been used in 1953 by Mahmoud Harbi, 19 then a party leader and vice-president of the government council, who was adept at obtaining the subsidies needed to carry on his propaganda. Early in his career, Harbi was gener¬ ously helped by the king of Arabia and the Imam of Yemen, but unlike Ali Aref, he had not felt obligated to follow the policy of his benefactors, as was amply demonstrated by subsequent events.

Egypt There was a time when Egypt exerted an undeniable influence on the TFAl's population through its radio broadcasts. This was part of the Pan-Arab policy of Nasser, who sought to draw the Red Sea area into the Egyptian orbit and to offset the presence of European powers there. His tactic, aimed at undermining the French presence in Djibouti, consisted of beaming daily programs in support of Somali irredentism to that territory. The year 1967 was memorable for Egypt be¬ cause of its lightning war against Israel, and for the TFAI because of its change of statute. Those two events combined, to deliver a severe blow to Egyptian supremacy. Egyptian propaganda directed to the TFAI gradually died out. As a result of General de Gaulle's pro-Arab policy, the death of Nasser in 1970, and finally the conciliatory attitude of the latter's successor, Egypt's position completely changed. In January 1975, it became evident from the talks between An¬ war Sadat and Giscard d'Estaing that they held the same views on the question of Djibouti, and their understanding was undoubtedly furthered by the French promise to deliver Mirage planes and missiles to Egypt. President Sadat, whose prestige had been reinforced by the reopening of the Suez Canal, wanted France and So¬ malia to reach an understanding. Like his neighbor Saudi Arabia, Sadat was probably satisfied to have the Arab world thereby protected at the southern outlet of the Red Sea. He feared lest France's withdrawal from the TFAI might lead to an encirclement of the strait of Bab El Mandeb by the USSR's satellite cbuntries.

96

Dj ibouti

Early in April 1976, President Sadat returned to Paris for conversations with President Giscard d'Estaing, after which he characterized France as "one of Egypt's great friends. ” As a matter of fact, he left Paris with a loan of 650 million francs and the pledge of additional military aid. There was no longer scarcely any doubt but that France had become Egypt's principal supplier of arms. As for formal contacts between Djibouti and Cairo, it was not until the end of 1976 that an Egyptian consul general was posted to the TFAI. As the date of the TFAI referendum drew near, the council of the Arab League, which was based in Cairo, gave evidence of its desire to cooperate with France. It wanted the referendum to take place under controlled conditions, but regardless of the outcome it desired closer Franco-Arab re¬ lations. 20 As for the TFAI, we have seen how closure of the canal affected its economy by abruptly putting a stop to the calls of some 1, 600 ships a month. Both at Djibouti and at Cairo, it was hoped that the work recently done on the Suez waterway would permit its use by 150, 000-ton ships (compared with 65, 000-ton vessels in 1976), in the expecta¬ tion that its capability would increase by 1980 to 250, 000-ton ships, thanks to the execution of an ambitious works program. The maritime traffic at Djibouti after the canal re¬ opened on June 11, 1975, fell short of the hopes of the local authorities, who for some years had been preoccupied with both the canal and the local budget. Djibouti port statistics indicated the sluggishness of its commercial traffic. After the French ships that had been removing mines from the canal left Egypt, Djibouti had a vital interest in the first freighter that used the waterway, for it initiated a less oner¬ ous means of bringing in provisions than by cargo planes. That ship was the 10, 000-ton Bordebarri of the Havraise Peninsulaire line, which aroused the hopes of the territory's population. Unfortunately, it was closely followed by a Sovi¬ et destroyer and other ships of that nature. It was then re¬ alized at Djibouti that the canal was no longer the trade route of former times, and that its future would probably be deter¬ mined by new events. By mid-l976--that is, a year after the canal was reopened--the number of ships using the Suez Canal did not yet equal three-fifths of those that had passed through it in 1966, although their tonnage was somewhat larger. In any case, they did not relieve the TFAl's pre¬ dicament, for most of them did not belong to Western-bloc countries and made little use of Djibouti's port facilities. Some American destroyers, escort ships, and submarine

The Territory's Position

97

chasers called at Djibouti, but the Russian ships that put into that port were mainly fishing boats or oceanographic vessels, or at least were so described. Would the considerable work that had been done to complete the port of Djibouti prove of benefit to the terri¬ tory ? Whom would it serve, and would it be eclipsed by Aden? Such were the questions being asked in Djibouti dur¬ ing the first half of 1977.

The Territory's Place in Red Sea and Indian Ocean Strategy Why did France remain so long in East Africa and seem so reluctant to leave the area? Could it have been for econom¬ ic reasons? Compared with other lands whose attractive nat¬ ural resources favored such an evolution, the TFAI's only asset was its port. The same might have been said of its airport, had it not been that the international airport of Ad¬ dis Ababa competed too strongly with it. The TFAI's inter¬ nal resources had been reduced to nothing since competition from other producers had eliminated the mining of salt. As to the cultural incentive for France to remain, a case might be made in favor of the Gaullist concept that France's presence in East Africa constituted a center from which its culture could spread throughout the surrounding countries. Although time had proved this to be true in the case of Ethiopia, it had lost its validity for those of its im¬ mediate neighbors whose radicalism drew them to another culture, which was of Soviet inspiration. What about the TFAI as a factor for peace? It cannot be denied that its neighbor's covetousness for the territory was a main cause of their mutual hostility. That covetous¬ ness was discouraged by France's presence, by its smoothly functioning administration, and by the troops stationed there. To be convinced of this, one had only to listen to the irre¬ dentists' virulent demands for that army's withdrawal. It should be noted that a goodly number of the world's countries looked with understanding on France's presence at Djibouti, or at least tolerated it, notwithstanding the votes against it on principle by some of them in the UN General Assembly meetings. This inspired one reporter to say that "France is not leaving Djibouti because no one is throwing her out. By and large, in the vital channel that connected the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean, France's role was somewhat that of

98

Dj ibouti

an involuntary gendarme who thwarted the claims of neigh¬ bors and of a "sentry guarding the balance of forces in the eastern Horn of Africa. "22 Could the TFAI be considered a moral responsibility for France? Here again, it might be conceded that by play¬ ing the role of arbiter in the TFAI, France had incurred a moral responsibility toward its inhabitants as regards pro¬ moting good relations between them and maintaining their liv¬ ing standards at a level higher than that of most Africans. France also felt it to be her duty not to dismantle the terri¬ tory's defenses during or even after the transfer of power. Nevertheless, it could not be reasonably believed that France was being philanthropic in principle, for that would impose a heavy burden on the French taxpayer. Djibouti, deprived of its role as a way station for shipping between France and its overseas territories and as a transfer point for its troops and civil servants shuttling between them, could doubtless hope to receive revenues from international travelers, foreign ships, and oil tankers. By dint of effort, the port could still preserve the advantages it enjoyed because of its geographical situation, its equip¬ ment, and its hospitality. Yet, that would not be enough to enable the country to survive, even if it benefited by a largescale revival of the Suez Canal traffic. In fact, the impor¬ tance of the subsidies France had felt impelled to grant in the past to ensure the TFAl's survival now became apparent. The factors outlined in the foregoing analysis are in¬ herent in the TFAFs regional setting, but they do not provide a satisfactory answer to the question of why France clung to that territory longer than to its other former African depen¬ dencies. Although the French leadership keeps silent on this point, one can look for its causes in a context larger than that of the region--i. e., at the international level. Before and during World War II, the TFAI was an important port of call and a valuable military base. There¬ after, however, interest in its offensive and defensive poten¬ tial declined with the expansion of modern military capabili¬ ties and the increased speed of communications. Formerly, the Red Sea and Indian Ocean constituted passageways, so to speak, used by the powers for their operations elsewhere-in Burma, Japan, Vietnam, and Oceania--but rarely as places in which to remain. The evolution of formerly dependent peoples changed the picture, and the mainland areas where

The Territory’s Position

99

Westerners had taken root became fewer and fewer. In their race for economic and political domination, they certainly maintained friendly relations here and there, but the United States and Great Britain had to turn elsewhere to establish bases suited to their individual needs. Because of great-power rivalry in the Indian Ocean, its shores are studded with outlying stations, and in the space of a few years it has become a zone of unusual activity where dangerous armadas have replaced the luxury liners of former times. Some countries are concerned with protecting their economic interests or huge investments there; others propa¬ gate their ideology in the region or try to prevent their ad¬ versaries from doing as much. As regards only the coun¬ tries lying on the western side of that ocean, vast sums are dispensed in trying to win over their populations. Countries that are large consumers of petroleum have a vital interest in preserving freedom of navigation in the Indian Ocean and in keeping watch on that star-shaped area, whose center is the Arabian peninsula and whose points are oriented to the Far East, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Red Sea. Consequently, under peaceful conditions the area around Djibouti, the strait of Bab El Mandeb, and the Gulf of Aden is on an equal footing, commercially speaking, with Suez, but it becomes more important than the Egyptian wa¬ terway in wartime. Despite the adoption of well-intentioned resolutions in favor of maintaining the Indian Ocean as a "zone of peace” (by the UN General Assembly in December 1971, December 1974, and August 1975, and at the summit meeting of the nonaligned nations in August 1976), the international organi¬ zations have been powerless to slow down the irresistible course of events so long as centers of latent conflict remain here and there. Among these are the sultanate of Muscat and Oman and Eritrea, to mention only the immediate envi¬ rons of the TFAI. France, whose presence in the TFAI gave it a ringside seat, is a major consumer of oil and carries on nuclear testing in Polynesia, hence it is perforce vitally interested in the stake represented by obligatory pas¬ sage through the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The steps that it took, and can still take, are unquestionably related to the overall strategy that criss-crosses that part of the world. In addition, there are the ties France is trying to preserve with rich markets avid for arms--those of Iran, Bahrein, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan--as well as the advan-

100

Dj ibouti

tages of having a choice position in the TFAI for keeping a watch on fleet movements, intercepting communications, guid¬ ing missiles, and carrying out air and naval maneuvers be¬ tween Madagascar, India, and the Gulf of Aden. It can easily be believed that, despite the reticence of French officials, Djibouti was acquiring assets of a kind different from those that it had during the last world war, and that it has become a prize in the international scene whose value far exceeds its role in Africa. If General Lescure, on an inspection tour of the TFAI in 1976, no longer ascribed to it a strictly military strategic importance, he did not deny the significance of its related political, economic, and diplomatic aspects. Favored as a base of operations by its geographical situation, Djibouti had become the northernmost point of a military area extending southward as far as Reunion (the command headquarters), and westward from Reunion to Tromelin Island northeast of Tamatave and the Glorieuses archi¬ pelago north of Madagascar, which included some uninhabited islands that were in the process of being equipped for mili¬ tary use. In that area as a whole, France had at its dispo¬ sition airfields, broadcasting stations and listening posts, missile-launching pads, and reserves of fuel. In this con¬ nection, one cannot ignore the role that could be played by Mayotte Island in the Comoros, New Amsterdam Island, the Crozet archipelago, and the Kerguelen archipelago, which have long been the site of scientific-research stations. Al¬ ready, some fifteen specialized French vessels armed with missiles permanently patrol the western Indian Ocean. Some commentators have gone so far as to claim that these French moves were the result of American pressure. Such an interpretation is hard to accept, despite the wellknown interest of the United States in East Africa and the concern voiced by President Ford in 1976 about what was happening in Djibouti. It is perhaps true that indirectly France favored the West's strategy, but it is easy to see that its own was based on self-interest rather than altruism, and that it has been developing contingency plans in the event of Djibouti's defection. Moreover, French policy in the TFAI has been linked to a shift in the center of gravity for its air and naval forces that began in 1974 and that gave priority to the Mediterranean over the Atlantic. From Tou¬ lon to the Persian Gulf and from Djibouti to Antarctica, its objective is to ensure the security of France's communica¬ tions. This is to be effected mainly by means of a military deployment based more on mobility in a vast field of action

The Territory's Position

101

than on the concentration of forces around a strong base. At the beginning of 1976, French and Soviet naval forces were the largest in the Indian Ocean. In April 1977, some sectors of world opinion attributed a new motivation to France after that country's military inter¬ vention in the hostilities between Zaire, which displayed no special pro-Soviet proclivities, and Angola, which had moved into the USSR's orbit. The shuttling of planes between Rabat and Kinshasa, some reportedly carrying matdriel and supplies and others transporting troops, suggested that the French government's new objective was to check the spread in Africa of the covert but effective influence of the Eastern European countries. If that scenario is transposed to the TFAI, sur¬ rounded as it is by a left-wing Somalia and an Ethiopia in¬ creasingly under Soviet influence, the significance of the brevity of the question posed in the referendum becomes ap¬ parent. France could not offer any alternative choice to in¬ dependence in view of the limited means for propaganda at its disposal as compared with those of the USSR.

Notes 1.

2. 3. 4. 5.

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

Hemous, Robert, "Le T. F. A. I. sur la Scene Interna¬ tionale, " Bulletin, Institut d'Etudes Politiques, anndes 1968-1969, p. 32. Interview with Lucien Bitterlin, France—Pays Arabes, no. 54, September 1975. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, Oct. 25, 1975. The government of the provisional administrative military council of Ethiopia. Le Monde, Dec. 9, 1975. See page 91. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, Aug. 11, 1969. Ibid., Dec. 20, 1969. See page 88. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, Jan. 31, 1970. Ibid., Apr. 1973. See pages 91, 121. See pages 53, 91. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, Aug. 9, 1975. Jeune Afrique, Feb. 20, 1976. See pages 87-8. See pages 87-8. See page 82.

Dj ibouti 19.

20. 21. 22.

Issa labor leader and politician, perennial rival of Hassan Gouled, and an early advocate of independence for French Somaliland and its eventual union with Somalia; killed in a plane accident in September 1960. Jeune Afrique, Mar. 20, 1976. Nice-Matin, Jan. 15, 1973. Valeurs ^Actuelles, Feb. 16, 1976.

6.

THE ECONOMY

Land and Agriculture Various scientific studies of the territory's soil have been carried out over the years. Hydrological and economic mis¬ sions sent to the TFAI assessed the land's potential, and considerable attention was given to its water resources. In the various plans drawn up by the FEDES, credits were ear¬ marked for the whole range of those studies, but the results were disappointing. One drawback was the comparatively short duration of the agricultural season, for despite the rel¬ ative fertility of certain areas and the facilities for irriga¬ tion, the crops could not survive the intense heat of the sun from May to September. Another grave drawback was the cost of extracting and distributing subsoil water, which was disproportionate to the results obtained. Still another was the difficulty of trans¬ forming nomadic and seminomadic herders into farmers, for the production realized from their labors was insufficient as an inducement to change their way of life. Because Allah had so grudgingly provided water for the hinterland, the rural population preferred to save it for their personal needs and those of their herds. Thus, large-scale agriculture and the cultivation of associated crops, such as date palms and cot¬ ton, remain a problem for the territory, for they are unlikely to attract investments. This is due not only to agriculture's technical complexity but also to the political instability that has invariably alternated in the TFAI with periods of calm. 103

104

Dj ibouti

On the other hand, there seems to be a future for small-scale enterprises that do not require large capital in¬ vestment. In general, market gardening is almost always possible on the alluvium bordering the oueds (dry water¬ courses), where water lies not far below the surface and can be extracted by low-powered pumps. Among the factors adverse to even small-scale cultivation, the primary one is the salinity of the soil, and experiments have been carried out with a view to correcting this by adding coarse plaster or lime. Lake Assal has a considerable deposit of gypsum, which, by being fired,.could easily furnish plaster for agri¬ cultural use. The TFAI, however, could not support large-scale or even medium-scale agriculture. Vegetables and dates are produced in small quantities, mainly in the suburbs of Dji¬ bouti. The yield of the date palms may be estimated at four or five tons a year, but no figures for truck-garden produc¬ tion are available. Certainly, output could be increased in that sector, which has benefited by the work of the local agricultural service since it was separated from the animalhusbandry service in 1966. Each year, the agricultural service provides material aid, advice, and seed to the market gardeners of Ambouli, Dikhil, and the northern region, notably those at altitudes that benefit by a moderate climate and by water supply, and it also furnishes some tractors for the use of small farmers. In this work, As-Eyla has played the role of pilot station, the soil there being of good quality and the water abundant. An irrigated experimental field of some twenty hectares was started there in 1975. Old groves were renovated and still another effort was made to start new ones. It is difficult to create palm groves, for the trees are by no means sturdy in their early years and require regular irrigation. The de¬ terioration of the territory's groves is a matter of great concern to the local ecologists. They do not know whether to blame the shortage of water, lack of care, or the damage caused by palm-wine-drinking bedouins, who kill the tree by extracting its sap. A study of the decline in the territory's vegetation, made in 1971, included proposals to protect plant life and punish offenders, which were carried out by the gov¬ ernment two years later. 1 Since the early 1960s, there has existed at Djibouti a farmers' cooperative society that, among other advantages, has offered exceptionally favorable terms to market gardeners

The Economy

105

interested in installing motorized pumps on their land. A contract provided for the rental-sale of such equipment, the total of rental payments corresponding to its sale price. After making agreements with some thirty market gardeners each year, the cooperative put a stop to them in October 1975 be¬ cause of the excessive number of debtors and the size of their debts. Farming in certain tropical zones must always take into consideration the vulnerability of the crops to locusts. The antilocust campaign in the TFAI was organized at the international level in the 1960s by the Organisation de la Lutte contre le Criquet-Pdlerin de l'Afrique de l'Est, in which six countries of the Horn of Africa participated. Radio warnings, specially equipped planes, etc., constituted the main weapons at that organization's disposal.

Sources and Distribution of Water In the TFAI, rains are rare and markedly irregular, and they vary in intensity from a few millimeters to 100 milli¬ meters within one or two days. The Gallas, who once oc¬ cupied the territory, 2 apparently practiced irrigation by uti¬ lizing the flood water of the oueds, but floods are so infre¬ quent and unpredictable as to make their utilization for irri¬ gating the land today of dubious value. Yet, the search for water, to meet the needs of farming and of man and beast, has been a matter of great and perennial concern to the ter¬ ritory's authorities. After carrying out a costly and incon¬ clusive experiment in cloudseeding at Ambouli, they did not persevere in the attempt to create rain artificially. Per¬ force, they turned again to seeking water in the subsoil so as to solve the problem of obtaining an adequate and regular water supply for Djibouti and the more difficult one of pas¬ toral hydraulics in the hinterland. In the rural zones, the years 1967, 1969, 1970-71, and 1973-74 were especially disastrous for the human and animal populations of the regions of Obock (where it did not rain between 1968 and 1971), Tadjoura, and Dikhil. The territory as a whole lost 75, 000 animals, or 15 percent of the country's livestock other than camels, which were only slightly affected, and the financial losses amounted to some 100 million FD. The government created a fund to alleviate the distress caused by natural calamities, and France allotted an exceptional credit of 3. 6 million FD to supplement the

106

Dj ibouti

funds granted in the years 1967-75 by the FEDES (176 million FD) and by the FED (150 million FD). Thanks to the pros¬ pecting done during the past twenty-five years, difficulties in the arid hinterland have been largely overcome in normal periods, whereas development of the capital's water supply has always lagged behind consumption. The simple explana¬ tion of this seeming paradox is that the needs of the rural areas have become stabilized to some degree, but not those of Djibouti, whose population has been steadily growing. At present, the capital's consumption peaks of 20, 000 to 22, 000 cubic meters a day are becoming increasingly difficult to meet, and the wells being drilled in 1976 were ten to twelve kilometers distant from Djibouti. As the extraction points became ever more distant from the capital, the water service has had to spend everlarger sums for its equipment. Its officials had begun to be seriously concerned about this problem when the Six-Day War in June 1967 led to closure of the Suez Canal. Djibouti' port traffic immediately declined, and consequently its re¬ quirements for water, because in prosperous periods ships accounted for up to 10 percent of consumption. 3 This sharp decline seemed likely to provide a respite for the water ser¬ vice, but it was just at that time that the Afar population began to move into Djibouti. In 1968, the Arrhiba housing development was built to accommodate the new arrivals. Moreover, despite the stagnation in the port's activities, there continued to be periodic peaks in its demand for water, during which its supply to the town had to be reduced so as to increase that for the port to the maximum. Random calls at Djibouti by large passenger vessels and warships taxed the resources of the water rdgie, as did the visit of Presi¬ dent Pompidou (accompanied by a host of reporters), the reinforcement of the military garrison in July 1974, and the French naval maneuvers off Djibouti in October 1974, not to mention the damage done to one of the water towers by the April 1973 earthquake. Although the reopening of the Suez Canal in June 1975 led to only a slow recovery of the port traffic, the demographic expansion of Djibouti forced the rdgie to resume periodically its summertime practice of cutting down its water supply to consumers. By the 1970s, the water situation in the rural areas had become fairly satisfactory, thanks to the creation of re¬ serve supplies, drilling of new wells, and repairing of exist¬ ing facilities. Parallel with these accomplishments, there began a two-year study preliminary to making an inventory of the territory's water resources.

The Economy

107

Animal Husbandry The Issas and the Afars are not true stock-breeders for, as in many other African countries, herds in the TFAI are con¬ sidered to be primarily a sign of their owners' affluence. If the nomads were interested in trading their animals, the lat¬ ter would be the territory's main resource. Only in case of dire need will they sell or barter a few animals from their herds. The milk of their goats and camels is a basic item of nomad diet, but only for special festivities will they slaugh¬ ter their animals for meat. When milk is abundant, the countrywomen take it to the nearest market for sale, some¬ times diluting it on the way when they pass a stream of water. Statistics pertaining to the size of the territory's herds are vague. The most reliable are those for cattle--which numbered about 10, 000 before 1967 and 14, 000 after 1968-and for camels, which were estimated at 20, 000 to 25, 000. As for sheep, estimates of their number range from 100, 000 to 350, 000, and those regarding goats are equally unreliable, fluctuating between 250, 000 and 500, 000. The same could be said for donkeys, which are thought to number some 30, 000. In other words, these estimates merit little serious consid¬ eration.

Minerals Salt is the territory's most abundant resource. Although it is a vital element in human food consumption and also nec¬ essary for the chemical industry, it has not been extracted in the TFAI since 1960. The most obvious reason for the cessation of what was formerly a prosperous activity was the loss of the Ethiopian market (adequately supplied by the Assab salt-works) and the decline in exports to Japan. Iron¬ ically enough, the average resident of Djibouti now uses an imported salt that is refined and iodized. Industrial uses might be found for the diatomaceous earth found in the regions of Gobad and As-Eyla, the volcanic lava of Lake Assal, and perhaps gypsum. By and large, however, the few mineral deposits found by geologists to date are of a nature unlikely to make their development profitable.

Public Finances and Planning As of January 1,

1949, the TFAI was made a free-trade zone,

108

Dj ibouti

and on March 29 of that year its currency became indepen¬ dent of the French franc, to which it had previously been tied. The Djibouti franc (FD) was pegged to the United States dollar at the rate of 214. 392 FD to one dollar, and in terms of gold its equivalence was 0. 414507 gram of fine gold to 100 FD. All transactions, including trade in gold and foreign ex¬ change, were authorized. A large number of companies set up their headquarters in Djibouti. The Djibouti franc was not particularly affected by the U. S. dollar devaluations• of December 18, 1971, and February 12, 1973, which were reflected, respectively, in exchange rates of 197. 446 FD and 177. 721 FD to the dollar. On the other hand, the Djibouti franc followed the seasonal varia¬ tions of the U. S. currency, which influenced the cost of liv¬ ing in the territory in the same way as did the general situ¬ ation in the Middle East from 1969 to 1975. As for the con¬ vertibility of Djibouti francs into French francs, this under¬ went fluctuations that were only remotely related to those of the dollar. In particular, convertibility was scarcely affected by the sharp decline of the dollar in 1974. The volume of the territorial budgets, which had been continually rising until 1966, when it amounted to 1, 912 mil¬ lion FD, decreased in 1967. Thereafter, the increase was resumed at a rate of more than 200 million FD each year except in 1969-70, when it was only 55 million FD, and be¬ tween 1973 and 1974 a record growth of 735 million FD was registered. By 1977, the budget totaled roughly 6, 300 million FD, as compared with 5, 887 million the preceding year. Beginning in 1968, the government was determined not to give way in the face of its difficulties, which it hoped were temporary. Although it still felt honor-bound not to impose a tax on income and profits, it nevertheless had to increase the fee for business licenses by 50 percent. As financial difficulties persisted, thanks to worldwide shortages, drought, and the weakening of the dollar, the local authorities found it necessary in 1972-73 to institute drastic measures. Among these were the setting up of a commission on prices, coop¬ erative stores, and a supply bureau, as well as publishing maximum prices that merchants were obliged to respect. From 1969 through 1973, receipts were larger than anticipated and exceeded expenditures. In 1974, however, there was a deficit amounting to 172 million. The crisis, the effects of which were already apparent during the two

The Economy

109

preceding years, made itself felt in the growth of irreducible expenditures, owing to higher world consumer prices, wages and salaries, public-debt charges, and the increase in the number of deputies and ministers. Drastic steps had to be taken to balance the budget. In 1974, these included increases in business-license fees, registration fees, and postage rates, and the imposition of surtaxes on tobacco, alcoholic bever¬ ages, and khat, and in 1975 the adoption of extraordinary measures posed serious problems for the government. The authorities were unwilling either to abandon development of the social sector or to increase further the existing taxes, surtaxes, and fees. Until 1975, there was no income tax in the TFAI and only merchants paid a business-license fee. There was a local sales tax of 8 percent, but it did not apply to food products consumed by the Africans, to goods in tran¬ sit, or to heavy industrial equipment. Enterprises could be exempted from paying the business tax if they fulfilled cer¬ tain investment conditions. To the consternation of some sectors of the TFAI econ¬ omy, income tax came into force there on January 1, 1975. The government solved its dilemma by resorting to a per¬ centage system, which indirectly had the advantage of re¬ specting the time-honored principle of avoiding taxation of low wages in favor of taxing those in higher categories. Be¬ cause the term "income tax" had an ugly sound in the TFAI, it was to be called a "solidarity tax. " The method for its payment was simplified to the utmost. There would be no complicated forms to fill out, and the tax would simply be withheld from wages and salaries by the accountants of the government or of private firms. As for the tax base, no tax could be imposed on wages lower than 50, 000 FD a month; between that figure and 100, 000 FD, the rate was to be 2 percent, and higher wages were to be progressively taxed, up to 12 percent on a monthly salary of 500, 000 FD. Those hardest hit by the new law were individuals in management personnel and the upper cadres. The tax on profits ranged from 12 to 15 percent. Revenues produced by the "solidarity tax" were estimated at 850 million FD, or approximately 17 percent of total receipts, and they permitted the budget for 1975 to be balanced at nearly 5 billion FD. To instill in the population the principle of living within the territory’s means, and to have the funds wherewith to pay its employees and as¬ sociates, the government drafted an austerity budget for 1977 amounting to 6. 3 billion FD. This total exceeded the preced¬ ing budget by only 7 percent as compared with the three pre¬ ceding years, when the increases had been 18, 34, and 24 percent.

110

Dj ibouti

In regard to the equipment budget, its revenues con¬ sisted of loans (either from the CCCE or from public terri¬ torial organizations), grants from France or from the local budget, the sale of land, and withdrawals from the reserve fund. In the decade between 1967 and 1977, the overall equipment budgets ranged between 49 and 385 million FD, registering their highest total in 1973 with 840. 3 million, and thus reflecting the years of political agitation or calm. 4 Al¬ though no loan was granted by the CCCE from 1971 to 1974, it made one of 470 million FD in 1975. Subsidies from the French government for the local operating budget did not be¬ gin until 1973, but loans in one form or another long ante¬ dated them. The political agitation of the years 1966-67 was re¬ flected in the suspension of FIDES allocations for a six-month period. At the same time, Djibouti suffered a massive flight of capital, estimated at some $10 million, and the same thing occurred in 1975 and 1976, when France's withdrawal from the territory seemed imminent. The feeling of uncertainty spread to the private sector, causing the transfer of some company headquarters to the New Hebrides and to Switzer¬ land. Long-established and flourishing business firms closed down or went bankrupt. The printing press of the Catholic mission was taken over by a Somali craftsman. Under the sixth plan (1971-75), credits totaled 3,404. 7 million FD. Of these, 514.1 million were allotted to produc¬ tion, 1, 851. 4 million to the infrastructure, 801. 1 to social equipment, and 232. 1 to general expenditures. Altogether, the financial participation of the FIDES, the French government, and the FED during the 1966-70 pe¬ riod came to 4, 578. 1 million FD. Even the contributions from the activities of the port, the Socidtd Immobiliere, the industrial rdgies, and the private sector totaled only 13, 356 million FD, a sum far smaller than the 19, 139 million called for in the territory's operating budget. The enormously heavy cost of administrative personnel accounted for 60 percent of the funds allotted to the territory, and this did not include the salaries of the civilian and military personnel serving there, who were paid by the French government. In short, a system that accustomed individuals to a relatively comfort¬ able life could become a crucial problem in a territory under¬ going change. It might perhaps be said that "wants costly to the country had been created out of nothing. "5 Furthermore, the inadequacy of the territory's equipment impeded its ex-

The Economy

111

pansion and private initiative. And the port's free-trade sta¬ tus, which permitted capital transfers and the repatriation of savings, did not encourage productive reinvestment in a ter¬ ritory that already was handicapped by its limited potential, political insecurity, and widespread public indifference. Because of developments in the Middle East, the spe¬ cial budget for the port of Djibouti was even harder to draw up than was the local budget. The fact that the port revenues accounted for 55 to 65 percent of the territory's total income was a major cause of such difficulties. Before the Suez Ca¬ nal was closed in 1967, the port's growing importance de¬ rived more from what might be called its transversal traffic-that is, services to ships and transhipments--than from its more stabilized transit trade with Ethiopia. Closure of the canal caused an imbalance that its reopening in June 1975 had great difficulty in correcting. 8 Consequently, the local government had to appeal for larger investments from Metro¬ politan sources. Finally, recourse was had to loans for the purpose of carrying out urgent public works that could not be financed by the territorial budget, the FIDES, or the FED.

Labor TFAI workmen are subject to the regulations embodied in the Overseas Labor Code of 1952, as modified by various collec¬ tive agreements. It has been estimated that the active popu¬ lation represents 6. 5 percent of the territory's total popula¬ tion, which is a very low figure, and that employment in the private sector has normally been about double that in the public sector, 7 except in 1974, a year in which the proportion was almost four to one (11, 561 private employees compared with 3, 006 public). The Caisse de Prestations Sociales (Social Welfare Fund), the last of the agencies set up to protect workmen, was created in July 1966. Family allowances8 and other benefits existed well before that time, having been introduced under the Labor Code. In addition to paying family allow¬ ances, the main objective of that Caisse was to see that Eu¬ ropean and local-born wage-earners (other than those in the territorial or Metropolitan civil services) received compen¬ sation for work accidents, consisting of an annuity for physi¬ cal incapacity exceeding 6 percent, as well as old-age pen¬ sions starting at age fifty-five. 9 Other tasks were added to the Caisse’s operations after its reorganization in 1962--those

112

Dj ibouti

of issuing regulations to prevent work accidents, financing such activities as occupational training, and even making loans to meet urgent needs of the territorial budget. 10 The funds required to provide social-welfare protec¬ tion, in which wage-earners were obligated to participate, came from payments made by employers, which represented about 6. 5 percent of wages. Between 1967 and 1974, total wages paid in the private sector rose from 1, 895 million FD to 3, 655 million, and those in the public sector from 989 million FD to 1, 715 million. In 1976, total wages amounted to 6, 200 million FD, compared with 5, 370 million two years earlier. The large share paid by employers in 1974 came to 13.2 percent of the wages, this percentage including pay¬ ments made to the Service Mddical Inter-entreprise and to the Caisse de Prestations Sociales. A wage-earner's right to benefit by these soc ial-welfare payments depended on his submitting each year to the Caisse documentary proof of his family status and employment. The minimum wage to which a wage-earner working a forty-hour week was entitled was set by the collective agreement of 1967 at 5, 790 FD for 133 hours of work per month. It rose by stages to 13, 750 FD in January 1976. The rate of increase in the minimum wage followed somewhat haphazardly the rise in living costs, which during that period doubled in respect to a workman's average food requirements. Statisticians, however, believed that wages in the TFAI were four times those in neighboring countries, and this prompted Ali Aref to claim that his "chauffeur's pay was equivalent to that of a general in Somalia. " On the other hand, there were three times as many unemployed workers as there were wage-earners. Although this situation worsened as the result of such events as the prolonged closure of the Suez Canal, it was alleviated by the initiation of public-works projects that were periodically sub¬ sidized by the French government. Chronic unemployment certainly represented an almost insurmountable problem for the territorial authorities, but it did not unduly disconcert either the general public or the inactive element of the popu¬ lation, for custom required relatives and tribal "brothers" to provide them with food and shelter. Nevertheless, it did become a disturbing problem when the barrier erected around Djibouti at the time of the 1967 referendum11- proved ineffec¬ tive, and also when the schools turned out increasing numbers of graduates who lacked the ambition needed to fill the jobs

The Economy

113

available in the labor market. It should be noted that the territory had a Manpower Service, whose assigned task was to assemble and codify data concerning the recruitment and qualifications of job applicants, as well as those of the vari¬ ous labor organizations that got together to form a union.

Education and Vocational Training At the outset, the development of mass education in the TFAI encountered resistance from custom, the nomads' inertia, and religion. It required all the skill, self-sacrifice, and per¬ severance of the Catholic missionaries to establish the first embryonic schools. Later, major world upheavals, such as the Second World War, followed by the extensive political reforms initiated by France, aroused interest among the country's youth as well as among their more or less enlight¬ ened parents. The outstanding intelligence of many of the local-born, their eagerness to learn, and perhaps even an awareness that their evolution was somewhat retarded as compared with that of other Africans were stimuli sufficient to inspire a strong desire for education and to crowd the first schools beyond their capacity to absorb. Gradually, the development of primary instruction was followed by that of secondary education, and the establishment of urban schools by that of rural classrooms. The territory's student body as a whole doubled between 1970 and 1975. The total number of primary-school pupils rose from 4, 500 in 1967 to 11, 000 in 1975, and the rate of growth, which averaged 500 to 600 annually before 1973, exceeded 1, 000 beginning in that year. Generally speaking, children in public schools accounted for 70 percent, and those in mission schools for 30 percent, of the total attendance, and the number of girls in school was about half that of boys. Attendance in the rural areas represented a little more than a fourth--26 to 27 percent--of that of the territory as a whole. The government regularly had to increase the number of classrooms, especially in Djibouti, where 123 of the 209 new classes were set up in 1974. At the secondary level, the student-body increase was much less spectacular, the number in attendance rising from 750 in 1970 to 1, 400 five years later, and the average annual growth was less than 150. Here again the proportion of stu¬ dents in private schools was about the same as in the primary grades—that is, about 30 percent of the total secondary-school

114

Djibouti

student body. In 1975, 800 students were undergoing techni¬ cal training as compared with 236 in 1970. In the primary sector, the teaching corps in 1966-67 comprised about 100 qualified instituteurs and thirty-six moni¬ tors and locally trained teachers, and by 1974 that number had tripled. Similarly, the number of secondary-school profes¬ sors, of whom there were twenty-seven in 1966-67, increased until they totaled fifty-seven by 1970-71. Before 1967, the training of local-born teachers made slow progress, and the majority of instituteurs and professors came from France. In 1970, the government'began training teachers for the ter¬ ritorial cadres, and three years later a normal school was opened in Djibouti. The lag in such training was more no¬ ticeable in the higher primary grades and in higher education generally. As of 1965, the TFAI had thirteen bachelors of arts, of whom three were native to the territory; in 1966, there were some holders of degrees in law and economics, a medical student, an engineering student, and twenty-five studying under grants in France. By 1975, a decade later, there were thirty-three with B. A. degrees, and of these only three were local-born. The small percentage of Africans in higher education is striking, as is the fact that their num¬ ber is about the same as that of Europeans. At the higher primary level, the situation is somewhat better, for on the average as many Africans as Europeans earn their brevet. Parallel to the liberal-arts curriculum provided by the lycde of Djibouti, there exists a College d’Enseignement Technique (staffed by eight professors in 1966-67), which offers training in commerce and industry. The latter institution specializes in mechanics, electricity, carpentry, and plumbing. In the territory, the imbalance between schooling and employment has lasted a good fifteen years, and there is no solution in sight. Meanwhile, the country lacks trained doc¬ tors, pharmacists, engineers, professors, research techni¬ cians, lawyers, judges, military officers, and the like. As of 1973, the TFAI had only one indigenous pilot and one nativeborn doctor, who was in charge of the dispensary at Ali Sabieh, and the local authorities seemed aware of the serious¬ ness of the problem. Following the example of other African countries, they wanted to start a rapid-training program, be¬ ginning with the manual and technical trades. Despite suc¬ cessive austerity budgets, the government had no intention of neglecting to train the young, and Ali Aref while in France appealed for aid to this end.

The Economy

115

The vocational-training center for adults, created in 1968, was given a new impetus by adding to its curriculum courses in masonry, automobile mechanics, refrigerator re¬ pair, plumbing, electricity, and hotel-training. In 1976, the newly installed government of Abdallah Mohamed Kamil grasped the importance of such training and set about developing it. In addition to practical work, school curricula were simpli¬ fied, but they still included general education so as to main¬ tain the intellectual level. Nevertheless, their main aim was to prepare young people for participating actively in the life of the territory, for the country would have great need of their services after it became independent. At the same time, it was also planned to send several hundred local-born youths to France for higher training in their professions. About fifteen student-officers went to the military camp at Frdjus for further instruction. At the end of 1966, three-quarters of those enrolled in the territory's schools were Issas or foreign Somalis, and one-fourth were Afars. In the troubled atmosphere then pre¬ vailing in the TFAI, the agitation of students there as else¬ where was at its height, and they joyfully launched a strike at the lycde. Several years of calm ensued, but the terri¬ tory's adolescents remained very susceptible to political prop¬ aganda. The demonstrations of late 1974 and early 1975, which began at the technical college and in which seventy ringleaders were involved, spread to the secondary school of Djibouti and the primary school of Tadjoura. All those establishments were closed for a time.

Trade and Shipping The territory's resources have been based, for the most part, on the external trade of its free port (which explains the large number of import-export firms) and on the services provided to ships. As for the foreign commerce of the TFAI itself, it is on a scale very different from that of the coun¬ try's general economy, and it is interesting to note the wide disparity between its imports and its exports. Aside from France and neighboring countries, the principal clients of the port of Djibouti have been the United States, Great Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, the German Federal Republic, Greece, Japan, and Israel. Obviously, the TFAl's trade was affected by its general internal situation

116

Dj ibouti

and by external events, such as the closing of the Suez Canal, recurrent disturbances from 1968 to 1975, the Ethiopian rev¬ olution late in 1974, the decline of Aden at the end of 1967, and the reopening of the canal in 1975. From 1967 to 1975, 10, 240 ships called at Djibouti. Data concerning the port's activity during that period show that calls at the port by freighters declined almost steadily (with an upturn in 1975), whereas those by naval vessels in¬ creased regularly beginning in 1970. Despite variations in the quantity of imports, exports, and transit goods, the vol¬ ume of merchandise handled was on the rise. On the other hand, the tonnage of hydrocarbons declined spectacularly, and in this respect the expectations of the local authorities were clearly dashed. The slight stimulus given to the port's traffic by the canal's reopening did not last, and in 1976 the number of calls by freighters at Djibouti declined by about 25 percent. The rise in port revenues during recent years should create no illusions for it was due in part to an exces¬ sive increase in handling charges and in those for transship¬ ment, as well as in the rental cost of hoisting machinery. Because of expenses of all kinds, particularly those related to wages, and of changes in the nature of the port's traffic, the imbalance between revenues and expenditures became more acute, recently amounting to nearly a million Djibouti francs. The port could not hope to reduce its deficit, while awaiting a return to the golden age prior to 1967, except through an expansion of Ethiopia's economy or by reorienting and diver¬ sifying the services it offered. In view of its present equip¬ ment, it has been estimated that the port could handle three times as many ships as it did in 1975. ^ Total imports, including those for Ethiopia and the TFAI and in transit for Somalia, comprised the following categories of products, listed in the order of their volume: foodstuffs and beverages, mainly salt; agricultural products, largely cereals; minerals and building materials, principally cement, metals, and metal articles; wood; leather; paper; textiles; cotton; chemicals; processed petroleum products; vehicles and spare parts; electrical supplies and machines; and miscellaneous items. The volume of imports did not fluctuate widely from one year to the next, the total for 1968 coming to 192, 000 tons and that for 1975 to 215, 200 tons. Exports, unlike imports, varied widely over the years. They amounted to 78, 800 tons in 1968, rose to 106, 700 the following year, declined to 83, 100 in 1971, increased markedly

The Economy

117

to 127, 300 in 1972, and grew steadily thereafter until they totaled 201, 700 in 1975. Data on the imports and exports carried by boutres are not included in the foregoing figures. For the year 1975, they were estimated at 2,088 tons of im¬ ports and 13, 016 tons of exports. As for exports as a whole, they consisted of the fol¬ lowing goods, listed in order of importance by weight: coffee, dried legumes, sugar, oilcake, other agricultural products, hides, oleaginous substances, wax, and cereals. In 1973-74, an average of 1, 500 animals each year, including cattle, cam¬ els, and sheep, from the Ogaden region of Ethiopia passed through Djibouti port on their way to Jeddah. In regard to the foreign trade of the TFAI itself, there was no common measure between its imports and exports. The former con¬ sisted primarily of items imported to meet the needs of the local population, the government services, and the army. Their value totaled 6. 7 million FD in 1969 and 11. 7 million FD in 1973. The value of the territory's own exports in those same years amounted in round figures to 2. 1 million and 3. 5 million FD, respectively. Indigenous exports com¬ prised almost exclusively hides, mother-of-pearl, and trocas shell. Thus, the trade deficit was both sizable and perma¬ nent. The TFAl's geographical situation inevitably made Djibouti an important port for sea shipping, and this role remained predominant because it did not depend upon a sin¬ gle client, as the railroad depended upon Ethiopia. From the outset, the port's activity developed to such a point that improvements have often lagged behind its traffic. That ac¬ tivity continued until the Israeli-Egyptian war of June 1967, at which time it began to decline. With the closing of the canal, tanker traffic was diverted to pass around the Cape of Good Hope, and supplies for the territory arrived by coast¬ al shipping, by sea and by plane from Madagascar, and by air from France. In the TFAI the cost of living began to rise very rapidly, but these developments did not prevent the authorities from continuing to improve the port's facili¬ ties, thanks to old credits and new, if smaller ones. Their aim was to maintain the undeniable technical superiority of Djibouti's port in the Horn of Africa, and in particular its advantages over Assab and Aden. Those governing the TFAI realized that its economic future depended, more than ever before, upon the free-port status of the port of Djibouti and upon the quality, rapidity,

118

Dj ibouti

and diversity of its services--in short, upon its capacity to become a regular port of call for ships in transit between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Early in 1969, reductions in port charges on certain goods destined for Ethiopia were already being made, and these soon stimulated the port's activity. In 1971, a free-trade zone was established in the southern part of the port, making possible the storing and processing of merchandise without the payment of taxes. The following year, work was begun on a commercial zone that covered thirteen hectares. Despite the aspirations of Ali Aref, Djibouti as a crossroads of business and trade in the manner of Hong Kong has not become a reality. To achieve that goal, it would be necessary to revise its trading system, diversify further the services offered, and--as proposed by the port's manager^ __ adapt the port to meet existing conditions. Its new role would be that of redistributing to Africa and Asia the merchandise in containers that was cluttering up the roadsteads of Middle Eastern countries. If, in so doing, Djibouti should become a vassal of the petrodollar kings, it would at least be spared death from asphyxiation. But more than that was needed to rescue Djibouti: new and large -scale investments were es¬ sential, as was the determination, influence, and knowledge of the younger generation. The first of those requisites could doubtless be found, but those of a less tangible nature would be harder to bring into being. The financing of the TFAI's development plans thus far adopted was based on the assumption that the country's prosperity depended almost entirely on the port. Consequent¬ ly, before the 1967-68 crisis most of the funds for carrying out the plan were earmarked for port development. When the territory was forced to retrench, the port was affected as much as were other development projects. In recent years, however, it has been provided with more substantial funds by the FIDES, which allocated to it 69. 6 million FD in 1974 and 90 millions in 1975. The project of a graving-dock, which had been the subject of heated debates for years, was completely aban¬ doned. On the other hand, alternative projects were taken into consideration, and an undersea-drilling program financed by the FIDES was begun in July 1974. New berthing facilities and storage space were built, and France granted 486 million FD to repair the port facilities damaged by the 1973 earth¬ quake. By the mid-1970s, however, all the territory's de-

The Economy

119

velopment program and its financing were being questioned in view of the orientation of the TFAI's political evolution. Fur¬ thermore, social unrest periodically affected the operation of the port to a greater extent than was the case in other sec¬ tors of the country's economic activities. The tribal clashes of March 1967, September 1968, and May 1975 caused delays in the allocation of funds to the port. Beginning in April 1967, the replacement of Somali dockworkers by inexperienced Afars slowed down the handling operations. Inasmuch as the newcomers had difficulty in adapting themselves, it was perhaps fortunate that events in the Middle East just then caused the suspension of many port activities. Then, the recurrent strikes by dockworkers al¬ ways adversely affected the port traffic, and in their motiva¬ tion, salary demands and differences of political opinion were inevitably related to ethnic rivalries. Yet, the labor dispute of September 1966 was the last serious one of its kind. This was either because the new dockworkers were more favorably disposed toward a government that now had a majority of Afar ministers, or because they were more flexible and less dis¬ posed to violence than were the more politically mature Issas. Moreover, the Afars, who had suddenly moved away from their wretched back-country surroundings, found that Djibouti offered them the advantages of a decent salary and a more secure social status. At all events, comparative calm prevailed in the field of labor for several years.

Land Transport The colonial pioneers of 1897 built the railroad from Djibouti to Addis Ababa. Only ninety of its 731 kilometers of tracks lie within the TFAI, the rest being within Ethiopia. Rising from sea level to 2, 400 meters in altitude, the tracks passed over or through 1,926 bridges and tunnels. Beginning in the 1950s, the line was modernized and given diesel-powered lo¬ comotives, and by the end of 1974, its rolling stock consisted of forty locomotives and 903 cars. In the course of its history, the traffic of this railroad has fluctuated widely, for the following reasons: the conflicts in Ethiopia from 1947 to 1953; trouble in the railroad com¬ pany's technical services between 1947 and 1949; financial difficulties that have beset the company; and finally, the modernization of the Assab-Addis Ababa road in 1954, thanks to American capital. Generally speaking, the major difficulties

120

Dj ibouti

seemed to disappear after a Franco-Ethiopian joint-management agreement was signed in 1959. As of 1976, the company's capital amounted to 4. 325 million Ethiopian dollars, 14 and its shares were divided equally between Ethiopians and French. Of the 50 percent in French hands, 27 percent were held by the government and 23 percent by private shareholders. Despite a precarious financial situation that has some¬ times required the company to appeal for aid to the govern¬ ments concerned, the railroad's traffic was only slightly af¬ fected by political developments in Ethiopia. Even after 1974, the traditional exports of coffee, leather, hides, dried leg¬ umes, oleaginous materials, oilcake, and cattle underwent only seasonal variations. Excepting coffee, which suffered from a plant disease, most other exports maintained their previous tonnages. Imports of sugar, fresh and dried vege¬ tables, and quicklime and cement increased; vehicles, metals, and fuel were stable (although they fell in 1975); and those of fertilizers and salt declined. The growth in imports was due mainly to large entries of cereals destined for the droughtdevastated regions and to the diversion of traffic from Assab to Djibouti due to dockworkers' strikes in the Ethiopian port. The railroad's freight capacity, as of 1975, could be estimated at 500, 000 tons annually, or approximately the same as that of the port. 15 The local authorities focused their attention on the territory's roads and trails, especially after 1971. Along with improving the north-south maritime connections--thus enabling the Afars to look hopefully southward for the first time in more than a century--the government could not polit¬ ically afford to neglect the east-west communications south of the Gulf of Tadjoura. Yet, those communications had more than a political significance. They were related to an economic strategy important to the TFAI only insofar as Ethiopia's internal affairs were concerned, such as the guer¬ rilla operations in Eritrea since 1962, the hijacking of air¬ planes, and mutinies in Addis Ababa beginning in 1973. Should Eritrea secede from Ethiopia, the latter country would lose its access to the sea, and its survival would depend upon Djibouti. That state of affairs was not altered by the fall of Haile Selassie, for the Ethiopian military government still had to cope with the revolt in Eritrea. The two-way Assab-Addis Ababa highway, completed by the Italians in 1938, is more than 800 kilometers long. For 450 kilometers it is paved, and the remainder has been

The Economy

121

improved by the construction of bridges and tunnels. Although in the early days it competed with the railroad, forcing the latter to revise its rates, this was not subsequently the case. Widespread insecurity in the eastern part of Wollo province had the unexpected result of diverting traffic from the high¬ way to the railroad. As of 1972, the TFAI's road network covered 900 kilo¬ meters, and the extension of its roads and trails as well as further improvements were planned and in some cases had actually begun. In Djibouti itself, a bypass road serving the port zone was put into service at the end of 1971. By 1975, motorized vehicles operating in the TFAI included 4, 000 tour¬ ing cars, 1, 500 utility vehicles, 1, 000 heavy trucks, and 1, 500 motorcycles. Their total was almost double the num¬ ber of ten years before. Curiously enough, there has never been any appreciable commercial traffic between the TFAI and the Somali Demo¬ cratic Republic, even during periods when there was no ten¬ sion between them. The only track that links the two coun¬ tries remains rough and hazardous. Trucks carrying motley passengers and their huge piles of belongings travel over it in a cloud of dust at breakneck speed, and albeit picturesque, they are not conducive to the organization of real communica¬ tions.

Air Transport The overall organization of air transport in the TFAI as of 1977 was as follows: an international-class airport serves the long-distance runs of Air France to and from the Metropole, as well as Air Madagascar, Ethiopian Airlines, Yemen Airways, the A1 Yemda airline of South Yemen, and Somali Airlines. (Planes connecting the TFAI with neighboring coun¬ tries are often more heavily loaded with sacks of khat than with passengers. ) Commercial aviation within the territory has been exclusively the province of a private company, Air Djibouti, formed in 1962. It provides connections with the hinterland cercles as well as services to Ethiopia, Aden, and Yemen! As of 1969, its weekly flights numbered two for Addis Ababa, four for Dird-Daoua, and six for Aden. Since 1970, there has been one weekly flight to Mogadiscio, and in recent years one for both Mogadiscio and Hargeisa. In 1974, there began a weekly cargo service between Djibouti and Nairobi, which brought fresh foodstuffs to the territory.

Dj ibouti

122

Air Djibouti also made charter flights available for tourists. In 1971, that airline became a territorial company in which a 51-percent interest was held by Air France. It continues to operate as before but with a larger fleet of planes, and employs about 100 persons. The French government provides the infrastructure, air-traffic control, and meteorological service. The precariousness of sea and rail transport during the periods of world and regional conflicts has demonstrated how indispensable air transport has become to the TFAI's survival. Although the Israeli-Arab war did not affect the territory as adversely as did the English blockade during the Second World War, it nevertheless stimulated the establish¬ ment of private commercial airlines to bring in needed sup¬ plies. In addition to the shuttle services already mentioned, Air Djibouti has inaugurated a weekly flight between the ter¬ ritory and France.

Notes 1.

2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

7. 8.

Strangely enough, there are no brush fires in this ex¬ tremely hot country. The acacia, which is almost its only spontaneous vegetation, is highly combustible, but as this thorny tree is separated from its neighbors by bare ground, fires cannot spread. See R. Tholomier, Au Rythme des Milldnaires au T. F. A. I., Cagnes-sur-Mer, 1975, pp. 104, 117. Between 1967 and 1975, the port's water consumption fell from 264, 100 cubic meters to 111, 400 cubic me¬ ters per year. T. F. A. I. Ministry of Finance, Dossier du Territoire, June 1975, pp. 20-21. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, Sept. 23, 1976. Port revenues declined steadily from 1967, when they amounted to 482. 6 million FD, to 397. 5 million in 1970, after which they rose regularly to 620 million in 1975. Investments financed by the port budget to¬ taled 397. 8 million FD between 1970 and 1974. Rapport du Sdnat, no. 502, 1975, p. 30. These included payments called "marriage allowances, " amounting to 900 FD monthly for each married wageearner, which on January 1, 1972, rose to 1, 100 FD, and an allowance for the couple's first six children.

The Economy

123

Initially, the allowance per child came to 750 FD, and after January 1, 1972, it was increased to 900 FD. Women wage-earners were granted fourteen weeks of maternity leave on half pay. 9. Such pensions were approved by the Chamber of Deputies in late 1975, and they amounted to 3 percent of wages earned during the first fifteen years and 2 percent thereafter. They were based on the official minimum wage. 10. See page 110. 11. See pages 5-6, 132. 12. Most of the data contained in this paragraph were fur¬ nished by the management of the port of Djibouti. 13. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, Nov. 20, 1976. 14. 1 Ethiopian dollar = U. S. $0.49. 15. See the 1974-75 annual report of the Direction Technique du Chemin-de-Fer Franco -Ethiopien, p. 4.

*

7.

CONCLUSION

In the former TFAI we find an unusual combination of the problems of other countries aspiring to freedom with a local political situation in which the dissidence of some parties has short-circuited the democratic process. The centuries-old discord between its two tribes is likely to continue, both by its very nature and because of the enormous difficulty the territory will experience in freeing itself from an artificial economy. These factors increase the risk of the country's falling prey to its neighbors, themselves also the victims of ancient animosities, and give little hope that it can ever lib¬ erate itself from dependence on one or another European power. All this constitutes a heavy burden for the terri¬ tory's 210, 000 to 230, 000 inhabitants, unevenly distributed over an area of 23, 000 square kilometers. Much study has been devoted to the difficult problems surrounding the future of former colonies, especially those in Africa. Opposing Africa's excessive fragmentation into highly diversified and more or less viable nations, some specialists explored the possibilities of their regrouping. For the Horn of Africa, Yves Person, professor of African history at the Sorbonne, has proposed various combinations, of which he prefers a redistribution that has a certain logic and one that he believes would be acceptable to the countries concerned. 1 His plan would join the territory of Djibouti to Ethiopia and the Ogaden to the Somali republic. In this way, the reunited Afars would constitute an autonomous unit within an Ethiopian federation. Such would also be the case of the Issas, regrouped in a way that would eliminate their division 125

126

Dj ibouti

by two artificial citizenships--that is, Person would unite the inhabitants of the former TFAI living east of Ali Sabieh with the Ethiopian nationals of the regions of Daouenld, Ai'cha, and Dird-Daoua. The same plan would also enable the Somalis of the Ogaden, who form almost its entire population, to be reunited with their "brothers” of Mogadiscio. It can readily be imagined how much good will would be required on the part of the states concerned for them to accept the foregoing proposal. Yet, far from being the product of armchair strat¬ egy, it would greatly simplify the East African problem--if the port of Djibouti did not exist. The territory's population having opted for independence in the referendum of May 8, 1977, another question arises. De¬ spite the propensity of newly sovereign states to accept as their boundaries the often artificial frontiers established by the colonial power concerned, it is not easy for such a coun¬ try as Djibouti to transform itself into a real nation. It has no historical past, no marked indigenous culture, no linguistic unity, no true discipline, and no economic resources. Per¬ haps it would also have difficulty in liberating itself from tribal constraints, getting rid of a natural sense of instabil¬ ity, and seeking the cooperation of countries abroad, without either permitting itself to be absorbed or acting as if it need not itself make any great effort to supplement such external aid. The sense of nationhood is indispensable, and it cannot be developed overnight. Its absence should substantiate the hypotheses of Yves Person, as well as the vulnerability of a peaceful solution of the problems that exist in the region. Recently, Olivier Stirn, without undue optimism, said that it was easy to see that the Arab countries and certain Afri¬ can ones not wholly favorable to the concept of national in¬ dependence believed it to be a lesser evil in the case of the TFAI. "Perhaps it is better to have a small independent state eager for good relations with everyone," he added, ironi¬ cally, "than a world conflict. "2 Notwithstanding the above mentioned negative aspects of independence, Djibouti's political sovereignty and territo¬ rial integrity might have the good fortune to be favored by the following factors: On the tribal level, there has already been noted an evolution in the younger generation, tending to free itself from the straitjacket of customs that for centuries hindered development of the concept of progress among their fore¬ fathers. 3

Conclusion

127

On the economic plane, the territory can promote de¬ velopment through the funds, experts, and matdriel supplied by the Arab Development Bank in Africa, the UN Program for Development, the African Development Bank, the OPEC, and other sources. It is easy to see that there is an abun¬ dance of potential godfathers, but the flow of such aid will depend entirely on the political behavior of the young Repub¬ lic of Djibouti. Finally, rational men in the former TFAI may well fear that local quarrels might degenerate into a widespread conflict, which would end any hope of being able patiently to build up a nation inside the country's present boundaries. With Djibouti’s tribes where they now are, it could serve as a buffer state between the countries to the north, the west, and the south, similar to "Belgium or Switzerland, where there exist syntheses of the same type. "4 Aside from achieving ethnic homogeneity, this is the most that one can hope for the inhabitants of a territory that already bears the burden of being greatly disfavored by na¬ ture.

Notes 1. 2. 3. 4.

Yves Person, "Pour un Socialisme des Peuples dans la Corne d'Afrique, " Revue Franqaise d'Etudes Politiques Africaines, October 1975. Televised interview with Jean-Claude Bouret, May 3, 1977. See page 5. Rend Charbonneau, "Le Territoire Fran^ais des Afars et des Issas, ” Marches Tropicaux, May 17, 1974.

*

8.

POSTSCRIPT (1977-80)

Djibouti became an independent republic under exceptionally adverse circumstances. Preparations for holding a referen¬ dum on the TFAl's future status were made according to a timetable based not on the Horn of Africa's overall situation but on political developments in France and in the territory. By 1976, the French government was feeling the pres¬ sure exerted by Third World nations to "liberate" the last, poorest, and smallest of France's former African colonies, and was worried lest it become involved in the armed con¬ flicts then engulfing the Horn. In the TFAI, terrorism prac ticed by the FLCS was undermining public confidence in the authorities' ability to maintain order; the LPAI, then the only legal opposition party, was attracting ever more advocates of independence among liberals in both major ethnic commu¬ nities; and Ali Aref had changed his political course so often that he was losing his credibility and his foliowing even among his fellow Afars. As to his foreign policy, the relatively cordial relations between the TFAI and Ethiopia, which had survived largely intact the eclipse of Haile Selassie by the Dergue in 1974, were being weakened by Ali Aref's advocacy of "Pan Afarism" and the support being given to the dissident Sultan Ali Mira of Aoussa by many Djibouti Afars. Concur¬ rently, General Syaad Barre, who had seized power at Moga¬ discio in 1969 after his predecessor's assassination, was changing his initially conciliatory attitude toward France and was demanding that Paris take decisive steps toward granting the TFAI independence. 129

130

Dj ibouti

The TFAl's internal and external situation had so far deteriorated by July 1976 that France withdrew its support from Ali Aref and progressively transferred it to Hassan Gouled, head of the LPAI. Gouled's first victory was the French government's declaration on December 30, 1975, rec¬ ognizing the TFAFs "vocation" for independence and indicating that it would consult the population's wishes as to their future status. Another year passed before the mechanism of con¬ sulting all of the territory's political organizations could be devised, and by then, because of the intensification of hostil¬ ities between Somalia and Ogaden, it was too late either to reach a consensus or to gain the time required to achieve one. Although by the end of 1976 there was no disagreement regarding the ultimate goal of independence for the TFAI, the traditional dissensions between its two major tribes surfaced with the rejection of a compromise reached at the round-table conference in Paris on March 19, 1977, by three of Djibouti's six political parties. So far as the future republic's external relations were concerned, no foreign head of state or govern¬ ment attended its independence celebrations on June 27 of that year. The only bright spots in an otherwise somber picture were the official acceptance of Djibouti's sovereignty by its neighbors, Somalia and Ethiopia, and the seven agreements then signed with France that assured Djibouti of continuing French military, financial, technical, and diplomatic assist¬ ance. In the spring of 1977, the ascendancy of the IssaSomalis over the Afars in the TFAI was demonstrated by the agreements reached at the OAU meeting in Accra among all of the territory's political leaders. By then, the only successes that the Afars could claim were France's rejection of a one-man-one-vote proposal put forward by Issa leaders that would have enfranchised the thousands of Somali immi¬ grants then living illegally in the TFAI, and the prominent positions in the LPAI still held by Ahmed Dini and Abdallah Kamil. Not only was the Afars' plea for separate electoral circumscriptions in the Afar cercles ignored, but the political primacy of Djibouti district (where Somalis predominated) was strengthened. Moreover, the single list of candidates sponsored by the Patriotic Front, formed late in 1976, guar¬ anteed a Somali majority in the forthcoming national assembly and, consequently, the election as head of state of the veteran Issa politician Hassan Gouled.

Postscript

131

Yet to all appearances, the massive and orderly vote cast on May 8, 1977, in favor of independence and of the Patriotic Front’s candidates was reassuring. Partly respon¬ sible for that achievement was the support given by Ali Aref-disillusioned with his fellow Afars' capacity for leadership-to Hassan Gouled as the only Djiboutian capable of preventing his country's annexation by one or the other of its neighbors. Gouled soon gave proof of his statesmanship in the policy statement that he addressed on May 24 to a national audience and his subsequent appointment of Ahmed Dini to head a gov¬ ernment in which Djibouti's three outstanding ethnic commu¬ nities were well represented. To be sure, less than half the electorate of Tadjoura cercle had gone to the polls on May 8. Yet, the Afars as a whole followed Ali Aref's lead, neither acceding to the pleas for abstention made by the MPL and the UNI nor expressing their disapproval of the referen¬ dum by violence. Almost immediately, however, three new elements began to alter what was on June 27, 1977, a rela¬ tively hopeful picture: for the appointment of Ahmed Dini and for the new republic's pro-Arab policy Gouled was respon¬ sible, but he neither initiated nor could control the escalating hostilities between Somali guerrillas and the Addis Ababa ar¬ my in the adjacent Ethiopian province of Ogaden. In the latter conflict between the Western Somalia Lib¬ eration Front, secretly supported by Mogadiscio, and the Ethiopian army, openly backed by the Soviet Union and Cuba, the railroad on which Djibouti's economy largely depended was sabotaged by the Somali guerrillas. Despite that eco¬ nomic blow to the newborn republic, the sympathies of Hassan Gouled and his fellow Issas lay with the rebels. Moreover, he felt personally grateful to Somalia for its support during the long years when he was wandering in the political wilder¬ ness. Although as head of the Djibouti state he had accepted those members of the FLCS who had been elected to the na¬ tional assembly, and even permitted the FLCS to recruit and discreetly train guerrillas to fight in Ogaden, he took none of them into his government. Similarly, while Gouled wel¬ comed President Syaad Barre when he visited Djibouti two weeks after it had become independent and had applauded his cordial suggestion that Djiboutians should consider themselves "natives of Somalia, " he became increasingly skeptical about the sincerity of Mogadiscio's acceptance of Djibouti's sover¬ eign status. Mogadiscio offered none of the appeal for Dji¬ boutians that the TFAI exerted on the southern Somalis, and immediately after Djibouti became independent, the influx of

132

Dj ibouti

Somali immigrants became so great that Gouled hastily re¬ built the frontier barricade that the French had erected in 1967 and that he had dismantled ostentatiously when the re¬ public was declared. For humanitarian reasons, Gouled stopped short of closing the frontier with Ogaden, although the arrival of thousands of Somali refugees from that war-torn province not only taxed Djibouti’s slender economic resources but, more seriously, threatened to upset the delicate ethnic balance on which its political stability depended. With time, it became increasingly clear that Djibouti's gradual absorption by Somal¬ ia would benefit only Mogadiscio and might well prove disas¬ trous for the new republic. Obviously, Addis Ababa would never permit Somalia to take over Djibouti's railroad and port even unofficially, and in the ensuing inevitable armed conflict Djibouti itself might well be destroyed. Gouled’s government, therefore, declared and maintained its neutrality in the struggle between its powerful neighbors, and its rela¬ tions with the Mogadiscio regime became progressively cooler. Of the new elements in June 1977 for which Hassan Gouled claimed responsibility, that of instituting a presidential form of government jeopardized the cordial relations that he had established in the LPAI with some Afar leaders, notably Ahmed Dini. By deed and by word, Gouled made it clear that he regarded his prime minister simply as the executor of his policy and had no intention of sharing real power with him. This proved to be a grievous tactical error in that it downgraded the Afars in the person of a leader who was re¬ lated to the sultan of Tadjoura, was a former head of the TFAI government council and president of its assembly, was a loyal member of the LPAI, and was a liberal socialist who had been reproached by ultranationalist Afars for his concilia¬ tory attitude toward the Issas. Indeed, it was in part res¬ ponsible for the violent Afar retaliation that came to a head late in 1977, and then recurred one year later. To be sure, those outbreaks of Afar terrorism were directly related to the Somalis’ fluctuating fortunes in Ogaden, but the reper¬ cussions of that war in Djibouti would not have been so se¬ vere had they not reignited the age-old hostility between the Afars and the Issa-Somalis there. The encouragement, training, and Soviet arms given to the Afar dissidents by Addis Ababa enabled them effectively to express their well-founded fears of Issa-Somali domination. During the first six months of its incumbency, the Gouled

Postscript

133

government actively discriminated against the Afars, giving vent to the resentment that had been engendered among the Issas during the nine years when Ali Aref headed a govern¬ ment council that, with French support, had blatantly favored his fellow tribesmen. Within a month of their taking office, the Issa leaders harshly put down a strike for higher pay by Afar members of the armed forces. Subsequently, the army was reorganized so as to give Issa-Somalis superiority and most of the posts of command, and a special police force (Celipo) was formed and was made responsible solely to Hassan Gouled. In October 1977, the murder of the mother of the Afar minister of justice added fuel to the flame of Afar grievances. The hostility felt by the most militant members of that community was spectacularly expressed on December 15, 1977, by the throwing of a bomb into Djibouti’s popular restaurant Le Palmier en Zinc. Two days later, Ahmed Dini and four of his Afar ministers resigned from the govern¬ ment. As almost all of the victims of that bombing were members of the French armed forces (two were killed and fifteen wounded), the Afar activists had apparently chosen to attack France in Djibouti rather than their traditional Issa adversaries. Implicit in such a tactic was the Afar militants' belief that they could panic the resident French into leaving the country and that by raising the specter of France's in¬ volvement in the war between Somalia and Ethiopia they could alarm the Paris authorities into withdrawing their troops from Djibouti. Such assumptions, however, proved unwar¬ ranted, and in fact they incited the Gouled government to take drastic anti-Afar steps during the first months of 1978, such as replacing the Afar dockers by Issas in Djibouti's port. More¬ over, the Afars of Djibouti failed to support the militants' action by staging an uprising. Even the traditional Afar chiefs, although they expressed their sympathy for the militants' mo¬ tivation, deplored their acts of violence. The Djibouti government, for its part, held the MPL responsible for the bombing, and the subsequent discovery of Afar caches of Soviet arms resulted in a new wave of official repression. Denouncing the mass arrests of Afars and the torture of some MPL prisoners, Amnesty International issued well-publicized protests, and liberal leaders in France as well as certain Arab countries urged Hassan Gouled to show greater leniency to the Afar dissidents. Whatever influence such interventions may have had, Gouled was able after three weeks of negotiations to find another veteran Afar leader as

134

Djibouti

successor to Ahmed Dini. This was Abdallah Kamil, who, on February 5, 1978, took office as Djibouti's prime minister on condition that within two months the government would cease persecuting the MPL, restore a better ethnic balance in the armed forces, and give the office of premier greater authority. Nevertheless, the Ethiopian-inspired terrorism did not wholly cease, and during its first year as a sovereign state Djibouti experienced more violence than it had in more than a century of colonial rule. In effect, by mid-1978 the republic was divided into two parts: the Issa-dominated southwest and district of Dji¬ bouti, and Afar country to the north. By the end of that year, some 30, 000 Somali refugees, equivalent to one-tenth of the republic's total population, were concentrated in the camps of Ali Sabieh (about 8, 000) and Dikhil (some 7, 000), and an approximately equal number were dispersed among fellow tribesmen in the main southern settlements. Fearing further retaliation at the hands of the Issas, many Afars liv¬ ing in the Arrhiba quarter of the capital fled north to Obock and Tadjoura cercles, thus giving the Issa-Somalis in Djibouti town even greater numerical superiority there than before. The French residents--more than 10, 000--including the mili¬ tary and coopdrants teaching in upcountry schools, withdrew to the capital for security, leaving only some Foreign Legion¬ naires in the Afar settlements of Obock, Wea, and Holhol. Such a partial redistribution of the population did not basically change its ethnic composition, but did accentuate its geographic compartmentalization. By adding so large a percentage to the Somali component, however, it altered the comparative strength of the two major communities. Afar weakness was further underscored by their community's dis¬ persal throughout the rural regions of the north, in contrast to the Somalis' greater urban concentration. Certainly, the ideal of a Greater Danakilia launched by Ali Aref in the 1960s appealed to many Afars, but less intensely than did the goal of a Greater Somalia galvanize the Issas. Inevitably, "PanAfarism" required the cooperation of Ethiopia, whose contin¬ uing revolution and conflicts with Eritrean and Somali rebels deepened the existing clan and ideological divisions among the Djibouti Afars. When Ali Aref, who had cultivated close relations with Addis Ababa, was demoted as premier of the TFAI in July 1976, Ethiopia's friendly attitude toward France in Djibouti underwent a marked change. In its daily Afar-language broad-

Postscript

135

casts during the Paris round-table conference in early 1977, the Addis Ababa regime charged France with abandoning its Afars in favor of those Issa leaders who advocated Djibouti's union with Somalia. (Already, two years earlier, the French had permitted the dissident Afar sultan, Ali Mira of Aoussa, to pause briefly in Djibouti on his way to exile in Saudi Ara¬ bia. ) Moreover, those same leaders were accused by Addis Ababa of permitting the Djibouti Afar followers of Ali Mira to smuggle arms through the northern cercles to the Front de Liberation Nationale des Afars (FLNA), which had been organized by the sultan's Afar supporters in Ethiopia. Not surprisingly, therefore, in 1977 Ethiopia provided firearms and military training to the MPL, whose ideology conformed with that of the Mengistu regime. That regime was accused not only by Hassan Gouled but by successive Afar prime min¬ isters of trying to undermine Djibouti's democratically elected government in order to transform the country into an Ethiopian protectorate. Some of the MPL's most effective terrorist activities could undoubtedly be traced to Addis Ababa's sponsorship, but the divisions among the Ethiopian Afars also affected their fellow tribesmen in Djibouti, who were already troubled by conflicting clan and personal loyalties. The FLNA there¬ fore found partisans among the Djibouti Afars, although others among them preferred integration with Ethiopia or a future alignment with independent Eritrea or some local compromise with the Issa-Somalis. Somalia's backing of the FLNA and Ethiopia's support of the MPL inevitably drew Djibouti Afars into the Horn maelstrom—the more easily in that neither of those two Afar movements professed any clear-cut objectives of its own. The MPL and the FLNA partisans in Djibouti shared only a desire to escape Issa domination locally and the fate of the Eritrean and Ogaden refugees in general. At the government level, it proved comparatively easy for Hassan Gouled and Colonel Mengistu to reach a modus vivendi because of their common concern to restore traffic on the Djibouti- Addis Ababa railroad. Early in May 1978, following the kidnapping by some Afar militants of a French engineer employed by the Djibouti administration, whom they transported to Ethiopia, Hassan Gouled sent a high-level mission to Addis Ababa. Its members were instructed not only to obtain the hostage's release but also to negotiate a settlement of the current disputes between the two countries. Although the mission accomplished the former task, it left the major issue between the two nations unresolved--that of

136

Dj ibouti

the ultimate status of the railroad. Even before Djibouti had become independent, Hassan Gouled had served notice that "we demand a revision of the 1959 agreement, which acknowl¬ edges Ethiopian sovereignty over part of our port. ... If war breaks out in the region, we shall not permit the railroad to carry military equipment. "1 Renegotiating an agreement between three sovereign states could not but prove a difficult and slow process, but it will be further complicated by the outcome of the Eritrean and Somalis’ revolts, whatever that may be. As an alterna¬ tive to the railroad, Ethiopia's use of the Assab port and road to Addis Ababa is long likely to remain insecure. In the meantime, Djibouti-Ethiopian relations have improved proportionately to the deterioration of those between Djibouti and Mogadiscio, and both developments have inevitably affected the relationship between the ethnic communities in Djibouti. By mid-1978, the defeat suffered by the Somalis in Ogaden raised the hopes of the MPL for greater support from a vic¬ torious Ethiopia, and beginning in August the MPL precipitated a renewal of violence in Djibouti, reactivating the old cycle of terrorism and repression. In June 1979, an attempt by some Afars to murder the head of Djibouti's security police led to more arrests and to further charges of torture against the Gouled government by Amnesty International. This was followed by reports that Ethiopian Afars were poised on the frontier for an invasion of northern Djibouti, and by rumors of a merger in Addis Ababa between the MPL and UNI or¬ ganizations there. This revival of Afar dissidence, echoed by the association of Djiboutian students in France, so dis¬ couraged Abdallah Kamil that he resigned as premier on September 30. Kamil was succeeded by Barkad Gourat, a minister in successive Aref governments who had attended the Paris round-table conference in his capacity as parliamentary ma¬ jority leader, but who, on March 19, 1977, had refused to sign the compromise manifesto drafted there. Eighteen months later, his selection by Gouled as premier indicated that the Issa president was scraping the bottom of the barrel of experienced Afar collaborators, but this did not make him more flexible than before. Two days after Kamil had re¬ signed, Gouled declared that "so long as I hold office ... the powers of the head of state and the head of government are indivisible. "2 Of Hassan Gouled's three remarkably durable Afar

Postscript

137

prime ministers, all of whom had served in the French Par¬ liament and headed the TFAI government council, Barkad Gourat proved to be the most malleable and supportive of the president. Whereas Kamil made few changes in the pre¬ ceding cabinet, Barkad not only reduced the number of min¬ isters but brought seven newcomers into the government. Moreover, he required each of them to accept unconditionally Gouled's definition of the government's goals of independence, territorial integrity, national unity, and detribalization. 3 Barkad even defended his chief against harsh criticism by fellow Afars. The now-embittered Ahmed Dini reproached Hassan Gouled with his unfulfilled promises to give Djibouti a constitution and to reform the administration and municipal government, with stationing French troops in the country, and with rejecting true independence by seeking the support of conservative Arab rulers out of his fear of Ethiopian so¬ cialism. 4 Describing the Afars as "the Palestinians of the Horn, " Dini went on to accuse Hassan Gouled of segregating them on "native reservations" prior to expelling them en masse to Ethiopia, so that he and his fellow Issas could govern Djibouti unhampered by Afar interference. Although Gouled's predilection for concentrating power in his own hands partly justified Dini's severe denunciation, the Issa president's record has not been wholly negative. In March 1979, he formed the Rassemblement Populaire pour le Progres (RPP) as successor to the LPAI and modeled it after other African single parties, and Gouled urged every Djiboutian to become a member with the aim of promoting national consciousness. In November 1977, he had appointed a committee to organize twenty municipalities in Djibouti; in September 1978, he named a council to reform the adminis¬ tration and later announced that candidates for the civil ser¬ vice would receive special training. (The UN Commissariat for Refugees had by then found it necessary to train its own agents to distribute relief funds and food. ) To be sure, little further was heard of those attempts to remedy the acute shortage of qualified personnel, but at best such a program requires time. In October 1978, Hassan Gouled for the first time in his long political career toured the hinterland, ac¬ companied by his ministers. He described this tour and a similar one in April 1979 as a mission to inform the public about the government and the government about the people's aspirations. 5 Of greater scope and of more immediate relevance to the territory's economic survival have been the development

138

Dj ibouti

projects sponsored by the government. In his maiden speech on May 1977, to the newly elected assembly, Gouled stressed the goal of self-sufficiency in foodstuffs and consumer goods, and fifteen months later proposed restructuring the govern¬ ment according to economic realities. Any appreciable im¬ provement in the country's agriculture and animal husbandry obviously necessitated increasing the water supply wherever possible, and thanks to Arab generosity it is expected that by 1982 about twenty-one new wells will have been drilled since independence. ® The more-abundant water supply and fodder crops have benefited Djibouti's herds (600, 000 sheep and goats, 50, 000 donkeys, 20, 000 camels, and 10, 000 head of cattle), some of which now provide the country's sole in¬ digenous exports. Hydraulic improvements have permitted an expansion of the market gardens at Randa and Ambouli, as well as the launching of a small pilot project in coopera¬ tive farming at Mouloud. There, limited quantities of vege¬ tables have been successfully grown in the winter season, but at a cost in water and at a price that restricts their sales to Europeans. The importance of the Mouloud experi¬ ment, in which half the farmers are refugees and the other half native Djiboutians, lies in its socioeconomic significance, for through the organization of a cooperative society and sci¬ entific guidance it may prove possible to transform pastoral nomads into peasant farmer-herders. An earlier and somewhat analogous attempt to develop fishing on an industrial scale has encountered even more serious obstacles. These are inadequate equipment and tech¬ niques, a lack of storage and refrigeration facilities, insufficent commercial and transportation networks, the irregu¬ larity of fish migrations along Djibouti's 300 kilometers of coast, and, above all, the population's indifference to fish as food. Despite the discouraging outcome of efforts by the colonial administration to industrialize fishing in 1952, the present government proposes to persevere in making an in¬ ventory of Djibouti's fish resources and in organizing fisher¬ men into cooperative societies that will equip and train them and market their output among the hinterland tribes. Educat¬ ing the nomads to appreciate the nutritional value of fish may prove the most difficult aspect of this program. To facilitate its execution, the assembly voted on December 20, 1978, to extend the limits of Djibouti's territorial waters. The development of light industries has become a con¬ troversial subject in Djibouti, where many experts urge pro¬ moting an economy based on specialized services rather than

Postscript

139

devoting the funds and expertise available to processing a few of the country's meager raw materials. Nevertheless, the authorities have opted for building a cement factory, an electricity-generating plant, and a bottling works for mineral water at Tadjoura, the last being destined to become the first industry created in a hinterland settlement. Other projects still under consideration are a tannery, the mining of gypsum, resumption of the extraction of salt from Lake Assal’s almost inexhaustible resources, the tapping of solar and geothermal energy, recycling the water used by Djibouti residents for irrigation of the town's trees and shrubbery, and the building of a water-desalination plant. Advocates of a service-oriented economy, on the other hand, argue that even under favorable conditions such an industrialization program would create too few jobs to reduce appreciably Djibouti's unemployment prob¬ lem or the cost of its imports, whereas developing an economy geared to serving passing ships (and tourists) would replenish the country's revenues, badly depleted since mid-1977 by the sharp decline in the traffic handled by the port and railroad. By early 1977, even before the tracks beyond DirdDaoua had been damaged by the Somali guerrillas fighting in Ogaden, the Djibouti-Addis Ababa railroad had been operating at only 30 to 40 percent of capacity, owing largely to the Ethiopians' development of an alternative route to the sea via Assab. Obviously, they were as anxious to free themselves from bondage to the port of Djibouti as were the Djiboutian leaders eager to liberate themselves from their country's dangerous dependence on Ethiopia's foreign trade. Although by late 1978 rail traffic had been restored between the two capitals and plans had been made to improve the whole line's equipment, the end of the Eritrean and Somali revolts must lead to a revision of the railroad's international status and a downgrading of its importance to both countries. Such a demotion cannot but alter the role played in Djibouti's econ¬ omy by its port, whose importance has fluctuated widely with the closure (1967) and reopening (1975) of the Suez Canal and the ever-greater significance of the oil route through the In¬ dian Ocean. On the debit side, Djibouti's port now handles smaller tonnages, employs fewer laborers (about 2, 500, formerly 3, 500), and performs services that are some 40 percent less remunerative than a decade ago--for both economic and polit¬ ical reasons. The huge oil tankers find it more economical to use the Cape route rather than the Suez Canal, Israeli shipping is no longer welcome at Djibouti, pilgrims who used

140

Dj ibouti

to take the sea route to Mecca now prefer to travel by char¬ tered planes, and Jeddah (as well as Aden) provides less costly bunkering services. Yet, Djibouti’s seaport is well equipped, its airport can handle the largest jet planes, the town's banking system and convertible currency are considered the most efficient and stable in the Red Sea region, and on the third anniversary of its independence the republic acquired an ultramodern satellite telecommunications station. Hassan Gouled’s latest pronouncement on economic policy, delivered in his independence-day speech on June 27, 1980, provided only vague clues as to the course that he hoped that Djibouti would take. 7 He spoke in general terms of draft¬ ing a ten-year plan that would include the formation of na¬ tional companies to generate and distribute energy, and of the need for greater and more diversified productivity, equi¬ table regional development, and larger capital investments. Significantly, the president failed to speak of the railroad and concentrated on his plans for promoting Djibouti's port as a free-trade zone and as a center for transshipping container cargoes and other merchandise to neighboring East African and Indian Ocean ports. Nor did he mention Djibouti's long¬ standing ambition to become the Hong Kong of the Red Sea region--an ambition that depended not only on the port's fa¬ cilities but on how much reliance could be placed on its po¬ litical stability. However, even under the most favorable circumstances—that is, with the railroad and the port work¬ ing to capacity--the income they would bring in to the repub¬ lic would not offset its chronic trade deficit or meet its ad¬ ministrative expenditures, let alone finance its development projects, whose execution has always depended on massive external aid. One major cause of Hassan Gouled's continuing in¬ transigence toward the Afars--whom he seemingly regards as his biggest domestic problem--has been the financial and moral support that he sought and received from the con¬ servative Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia. From the outset it was clear that Hassan Gouled intended to play the Arab card to the maximum, for in the spring of 1977 he had responded to Saudi overtures by sending Ahmed Dini to Riyadh in quest of a financial commitment. Upon being elected head of state, Gouled announced that Djibouti would become an Arab republic. For reasons of prestige and dip¬ lomacy, he desired membership in the UN and the OAU, but his successful candidacy for membership in the Arab League proved to be his most rewarding foreign-policy initiative.

Postscript

141

One month after Djibouti became independent, Saudi Arabia made a down payment on the new republic's good will by of¬ fering it a subsidy of $10 million, and in 1978 its grant of $60 million more to carry out various economic-development projects exceeded Djibouti's national revenues for that year. In what appears to be an informal arrangement between Saudi Arabia and France to guarantee Djibouti's independence, the latter government is providing the military clout and the for¬ mer the financial wherewithal. Inevitably, Djibouti has had to pay a price for such Saudi benevolence, and this has taken both cultural and politi¬ cal forms. To underscore Djibouti’s Arabism and its fealty to the Muslim religion, Gouled declared it to be an Arab state whose official religion was Islam. Although reportedly he resisted Arab pressure to call Djibouti officially an Islamic republic, Gouled made Friday instead of Sunday the legal weekly day of rest and temporarily forbade the import and sale of khat. Arabic became the official language and, as such, is being introduced into the school system. On the debit side of the ledger, Djibouti by joining the Arab camp has had to forego the sums formerly earned by services to Israeli ships, and to go through the form of boycotting Egypt because of the Camp David accords. In principle, Cairo and Khartoum have been as well disposed toward Djibouti as has Riyadh, but to express their good will their governments have lacked the means other than token gestures. As to the radical Arab states, Hassan Gouled has been careful to include them in his frequent tours of the Near and Middle East, fez in hand. Although he has always been cor¬ dially greeted by the presidents of Algeria and Libya at OAU summits and Islamic meetings and has occasionally received gifts in kind from them, only Iraq has rivaled Saudi Arabia in the lavish scale of its monetary donations. Following the visit to Bagdad of Premier -Barkad in May 1980, Iraq an¬ nounced that in addition to its previous bounty it would allo¬ cate to Djibouti $60 million, of which all but $26 million would be a gift. Thus, Iraq is financing Djibouti's cement plant, 150 low-cost lodgings, a scientific laboratory, the salaries of agricultural and hydraulic technicians, and relief supplies to hundreds of drought victims, as well as an air¬ plane for the personal use of President Gouled. Iraq's gen¬ erosity is hard to understand in view of its friendship with the Soviet Union, which, however, includes no commitment to communist ideology or support for Ethiopia's expansionism at Djibouti's expense. In financing Djibouti's independence,

142

Dj ibouti

Iraq shares with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states the goals of reinforcing Arab solidarity and of expanding the influence of Islam in the Horn. Contrary to Iraq, however, the gen¬ erosity of the conservative Arab states stems also from their zeal to thwart Soviet aspirations in both Ethiopia and Somalia. 8 In recent months, the deterioration of Riyadh's rela¬ tions with the newly installed authorities in the two Yemens, and the growing likelihood of their union, have underscored in Saudi eyes the importance of maintaining Djibouti as an oasis of conservatism and of comparative political stability. The policy of the Gouled government contrasts with the radi¬ calism of the Democratic Republic of Yemen. The latter's port of Aden, together with Djibouti, control the southern entrance to the Red Sea, which Saudi Arabia hopes to trans¬ form into an "Arab lake of peace, unpolluted by Marxism. "9 The funds offered by the conservative Arab sources, now amounting altogether to some $85 million a year, have in large part enabled Djibouti to pay its own armed forces, civil servants, and diplomatic missions. Largesse on such a scale has also permitted Djibouti to reduce the number of unemployed persons in the country (estimated at between 30, 000 and 40, 000 in 1979, resulting from the influx of refu¬ gees and the departure of many French nationals). Inasmuch as nine of the total of thirteen countries now maintaining em¬ bassies in Djibouti are Arab, and as they are almost equally divided between radical and conservative governments, Hassan Gouled has clearly been able to keep the balance between ide¬ ologically divergent Arab nations. Another testimonial to his diplomatic skill is the presence in the capital of ambassadors from both the Soviet Union and the United States, which, along with France, are the only Western powers represented at that level there. -*-9 Even though the Soviet Union recognized Djibouti on June 27, 1977, relations between the two countries had al¬ ready got off to a poor start. Early in the year, the Soviets had proposed a federation for all the Horn region, which would include Eritrea and South Yemen as well as Djibouti. The suggestion was vigorously rejected by both Barre and Mengistu, and perhaps for that reason diplomatic relations between Moscow and Djibouti were not established until April 1978. Thereafter, the Russian presence was felt only indirectly in Djibouti, mainly in the form of Soviet weapons smuggled to the MPL by way of Ethiopia. More recently, there has been no evidence of direct intervention by Moscow in Djibouti's af¬ fairs, but Soviet policy in the Horn could no doubt profit by

Postscript

143

the downfall of the Gouled government. Undoubtedly, also, the USSR's inroads throughout the Horn were responsible for the burgeoning of Sino-Djibouti relations beginning in 1979, and even more for the rapid development of interest on the part of the United States in Djibouti that same year. Until the first of three cooperation agreements was signed in March 1979, American aid to Djibouti--valued at some $40 million a year, of which about half was represented by gifts of food--had been allocated for the relief of its refu¬ gees, but thereafter it went more to promoting the country's development projects. Such a reorientation was not unrelated to the marked interest being shown by the US navy in Djibouti as an ideal port for the observation of Soviet activities in the western Indian Ocean. Certainly, the growing use of Djibouti's port and other facilities has strengthened the budding coopera¬ tion between Washington and Paris in Africa. Ironically enough, France's presence and prestige in the Red Sea region have never been stronger or more visible than since it ceased to rule at Djibouti. Not only do the con¬ servative, pro-Western nations approve the presence of French troops there, but so do those Third World countries most concerned to see peace maintained in the region. Further¬ more, this view is apparently shared by the majority of Djiboutians, among whom the more than 4, 000 French soldiers living in their midst--but forbidden to maintain internal order--are for the first time enjoying popularity. Aside from their role as an effective deterrent to an invasion of the republic, as was the case in 1977, the French forces' salaries are paid by France and for the most part are spent locally to the great profit of the country's economy in general and of its merchants, restaurateurs, and 3,000 or more res¬ ident prostitutes in particular. H In 1978, the funds paid by France for the upkeep of its troops in Djibouti and for the equipment, training, and maintenance of the new republic's army amounted to 12 bil¬ lion Djibouti francs, or slightly more than the national bud¬ get. 12 By June 6, 1978, when the Djiboutian army celebrated its first birthday, the gendarmerie and garde nomade had been supplemented by the republic's first infantry regiment. Two months after independence, the government had decided to enlarge its armed forces to 4, 000 from the initially approved total of 2, 500. This numerical increase, as well as the es¬ tablishment of a military school on March 1, 1980, indicated the Gouled government's determination to depend for its de-

144

Dj ibouti

fense on indigenous forces as soon as possible, but in reality the size of the national army has never exceeded 1, 500. The prowess of the Afars and Issas as warriors has been demon¬ strated on an individual or clan basis but is not adapted to the military discipline of a modern army, and enlistments in Djibouti's armed forces have been largely offset by desertions Moreover, tribal antagonisms are a fundamental weakness and a perennial obstacle to building an integrated national army. During Ali Aref's long tenure as head of the TFAI government council, France's pro-Afar stance was predicated on the assumption that 'the Afars were stronger in number and in loyalty to the colonial administration than were the more turbulent, enterprising, and aggressive Issa-Somalis. The revolutions and upheavals at Mogadiscio and Addis Ababa between 1969 and 1975 had repercussions in the TFAI that so drastically altered the image of the Issas as to make them seem to be models of moderation and reliability, whereas the Afars now appeared to be violent revolutionaries. Another, more cogent, cause contributing to France's volte-face was the evolution in French public opinion, due primarily to fac¬ tors external to the TFAI, which made clinging to that tiny territory appear to be both an expensive and a dangerous anachronism. Independence, however, brought no relief in the burden borne by the French taxpayer--on the contrary, French aid to Djibouti in one form or another, during its first three years as a sovereign republic, totaled 550 million French francs, and with the aim of maintaining France's con¬ tributions at a high level, Hassan Gouled made successful semiannual trips to Paris. The French government's willingness to commit its troops and funds to Djibouti on such a scale can be explained by France's strategy in the Indian Ocean, and not simply by its relevance to Djibouti alone or even to the Horn of Africa as a whole. Inasmuch as 70 percent of the petroleum im¬ ported by France is carried on ships flying the tricolor and plying the Indian Ocean, the Paris government is maintaining a permanent mobile fleet there, based at Djibouti. Since 1979, that fleet has numbered from twelve to eighteen fighting ships, manned by some 5,000 sailors, and carrying fortythree planes and helicopters.13 Its commander, Admiral J. P. Oresco, coordinates his operations with those of the of¬ ficers in charge of the 4, 500 or so troops stationed at Dji¬ bouti, the 3, 200 on Reunion Island, and the few hundred other French soldiers dispersed throughout the islands of the Mo-

Postscript

145

zambique Channel (disputed by Madagascar) and on Tremolin Island (contested by Mauritius). France's continuing presence in Djibouti is a remark¬ ably constant factor in a region increasingly given to violent change. Obviously, its constancy has been due not to the territory's inherent resources but to its location at the junc¬ ture of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. It is the more noteworthy in that the political and economic circumstances that initially gave Djibouti strategic significance in the nine¬ teenth century have now lost much of their validity. Tech¬ nological developments in transportation and communications and, even more significantly, the shrinkage of France's farflung empire have made Djibouti obsolete as a relay station for French shipping. Political developments in the region have eliminated Britain and Italy as France's main adversar¬ ies in the Horn of Africa and substituted for them the indig¬ enous governments of Somalia and Ethiopia and the latter's communist allies. Consequently, Djibouti's man-made as¬ sets, its railroad and port serving Addis Ababa's foreign trade, are declining in importance, and Djibouti's economy is being reoriented away from the hinterland and toward the ocean. The foregoing politico-economic changes coincided with, and perhaps in part precipitated, France's grant of in¬ dependence to Djibouti and the shift of its interest in that territory from the African mainland to its role as sentinel beside the shipping route leading from the Middle East oil¬ fields to Europe. Djibouti's ability to maintain its indepen¬ dence depends largely on its leaders' diplomatic skills and adaptability and on their ability to utilize the time and breath¬ ing space given them by the French military presence and Arab financial assistance. In the economic domain, Djibouti seems destined at best to carry out a salvaging operation. As a seaport, its future is modest, given the competition from Aden and Jed¬ dah and its seismological instability, which precludes attract¬ ing the funds required to build a drydock or a naval repair yard there. As the "Hong Kong of East Africa, " its poten¬ tial is limited by its inhabitants' tribal divisions, lack of in¬ dustry and expertise, and the uncertainty that clouds its fu¬ ture stability. Independent in name only and almost destitute of raw materials and foodstuffs, Djibouti lives at the suffranee of its immediate neighbors and on the largesse of the world powers. Its leaders have capitalized on the support and credence given by Third World countries to Djibouti's legally sovereign status, feeling reasonably sure that no predators

Dj ibouti

146

will lightly assume the onus of destroying what appears to be an oasis of peace and calm in a deeply troubled region. For the present, the Gouled government has chosen survival as Djibouti's vocation, with the hope that in time its inhabitants will develop a national consciousness. Insofar as Djibouti's future depends on its internal stability, the key factor at present is continuity in its leader¬ ship. Hassan Gouled's age (sixty-four) and--perhaps even more important—the aspirations of junior Afar officers who have been frustrated by Gouled's record of pro-Issa partisan¬ ship in domestic affaris, might give rise to a coup d'dtat. Except for Ali Aref, who has been singularly self-effacing politically over the past three years, there is no experienced Djiboutian politician available as an alternative or successor to Gouled. Furthermore, Ali Aref's record of partiality to his fellow Afars is likely to reopen old ethnic wounds and possibly provoke civil war. However, important areas of agreement among the Djiboutians can already be discerned, such as their choice of free trade and the free-enterprise system, as well as their rejection of xenophobia, ideological intransigence, and Islamic fundamentalism. That they have opted officially for Arabism is principally out of practical considerations, and their partisanship has stopped short of rekindling Ethiopian fears of Arab encirclement. Similarly, their acceptance of France's military presence on their soil is a sign of their growing political maturity. Most encouraging of all for the development of Dji¬ boutian nationalism has been the spectacle of confusion, in¬ security, and violence offered by Mogadiscio and Addis Ababa following the overthrow of their regimes during the past dec¬ ade. Whereas formerly Somalia's irredentism and Haile Se¬ lassie's pseudo-paternalism encouraged the Issas' and the Afars' respective centrifugal tendencies and their mutual animosity, today they are helping to build a bridge between the two groups. If the Djiboutians' nascent sense of nation¬ hood succeeds in taking firm root, it should prove to be the strongest bulwark for their country's independence.

Notes 1.

Jeune Afrique, June 12,

1977.

Postscript 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8.

9. 10.

11. 12. 13.

147

Le Rdveil de Djibouti, Sept. 7, 1978. Marches Tropicaux, Oct. 20, 1978. Jeune Afrique, JuTy 18, 1979. Le Rdveil de Djibouti, Apr. 19, 1979. Le Monde, July 4, 1980. See La Nation-Djibouti, June 29, 1980. This was the first issue of the Djibouti government's new weekly press organ, which replaced Le Rdveil de Djibouti. See R. Tholomier, "La Place du TFAI entre Afrique et Asie, " Revue Frangaise d'Etudes Politiques Africaines, no! 124, April 1976. The Guardian, July 3, 1977. Belgium, East Germany, Canada, Great Britain, Italy, and Japan have accredited nonresident ambassadors to Djibouti, as have Cameroun, China, Guinea, Iran, Pakistan, South Korea, and Uganda. Le Monde, May 7, 1977. See Marches Tropicaux, Oct. 20, 1978; Le Rdveil de Dj ibouti, Nov. 23^ 1979. Le Monde, May 24, 1979.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Albospeyre, M., et al. Mer Rouge, Afrique Orientale, Cahiers de l’Afrique et l'Asie (Paris: J\ Peyronnet, 1959). Armandy, A. Baroli,

M.

La Voie sans Disque (Paris: L'Ethiopie (Paris:

Tallandier, 1948).

Editions du Dialogue,

1969).

Briand, B. "L'Evolution Politique du T. F. A. I. depuis 1967," Revue Frangaise d'Etudes Politiques Africaines, no. 124, April 1976. Charbonneau, R. "Le Territoire Fran^ais des Afars et des Issas, " Marches Tropicaux et Mdditerrandens, no. 1488, May 17, 1974. Conseil de la R^publique. Sept. 11, 1975.

Rapport d'Information, no.

Davy, A. Ethiopie d'Hier et d'Aujourd'hui (Paris: du Livre Africain, 1970).

502,

Edition

Decraene, P. "La Crise Ouverte a Djibouti, " Le Monde Diplomatique, November 1966. "La Cote Franqaise des Somalis avant le Refer endum, " Le Monde Diplomatique, March 1967. . "Cote des Somalis: Lendemains Incertains, " Le Mois en Afrique, April 1967.

Dj ibouti

150

Deschamps, H., et al. C6te des Somalis - -Reunion- -Inde (Paris: Berger -Levrault^ 1948). Direction Technique du Chemin de Fer Franco -Ethiopien, Rapports Annuels. La Documentation Frangaise, Notes et Etudes Documentaires (Paris). "Traitd Franco-Ethiopien Relatif au Chemin de Fer de Djibouti d Addis-Abdba, " no. 2658. Nov. 12, 1959. "La C