The Horn of Africa : War Now, War Always

The Horn of Africa. The worst place to be if you're a hippie. This place hasn't had any peace, ever. Look at the countries in the Horn of Africa. You got Ethiopia, Somalia, Eritrea, Djibouti. Among the most fucked up countries on this Earth. All right next to each other and you got the scariest ethnic groups alive running them.

The Afar have Djibouti, the Tigrayans have Eritrea, Somalis have Somalia but Ethiopia is the weird exception. Its got all of those peoples except the Oromo (which in my opinion scare me the most) and Amhara (which until recently, ran the country). The Oromos and Somalis want out and only a thin coalition of Tigrayans and Amharas are keeping Ethiopia together. But something else is too. That something, is NATIONALISM. To me, Ethiopia seems more like 19th Century Europe than some poor sub-Saharan African country like Malawi or Zambia. These guys are more violent.

For centuries, the Amharas have been fighting of Nubians, Arabs, Somalis, Oromos and Tigrayans. Something they still do today but around the mid 1800s. This tribe along with the Oromo became united through feudal marriages and feudal wars between Ras (or Lords) of Ethiopian cities. One Ras, Ras Menelik won it all and became Negus (Emperor) of Ethiopia. This guy was a smart Emperor. He knew the mistakes of his predecessors. One guy, Tewdoros (or Theodore) got destroyed by the British in 1858. He knew he needed rifles and lots of them. He was different from most African rulers at the time. Rulers in Central, Southern and West Africa were content with posessing gold, harems and muskets. Menelik was just fine with this Bible and a good Martini-Henri at his side. He needed them too. He had to fend off rival Ras, plus Egyptians, Sudanese.

He needed European powers to help him out, in this case they were France and Italy. But Italy, double crossed them. (Are you surprised?). Italy formed when modern Ethiopia formed because just like Ethiopia, it was a bunch of feudal states trying to fend off big European players like France, Austria etc. In some treaty the Italians gave to the Ethiopians to sign, it basically said that Ethiopia was now Italy's colony (or bitch). No ruler in the 19th century could accept that. From little Paraguay, the Boer Republics and the Sikh Kingdoms to France, Prussia, Russia and Qing China they had a similiar disorder. They had the overproduction of testosterone. War was taken seriously back then, it meant life or death for your tribe whether that be (French, Zulu, Sioux whatever). War wasn't a joke. Nowadays, war is an excuse to make you corporate backers rich in much of the world. Except in the Horn of Africa (let's call it the Horn).

Italians had a little colonial base in modern day Eritrea where they could launch attacks on Central Ethiopia, the Amhara homeland. The Ethiopians had some 200,000 men (half of them had rifles). The Italians had a tenth of that number. It looked to be a classical brawl. After some Ethiopian hordes had gone ahead and smashed Italian Askari (African bitches) battalions the Italians dug in. So did the Ethiopians in this strange stalemate until.... the attack came. 20,000 Ethiopians with 8,000 cavalry charged at the Italians as Ethiopian gunners fired shells on their enemies positions. Can you imagine being an Italian on the receiving end of that? Ethiopians may have been short and wiry but their headresses composed of Lion hair made them seem much taller. Ethiopian cavarly speared Italians and native Askari alike. In the end, the battle shocked the world. Africans had beat Europeans??

Ethiopia managed to avoid colonization because of this battle and conquered Somalia. Not bad for Emperor Menelik, not bad.

The Italians come again in 1935 and they mean business. (I dont know why people mock French military history, the Italians have the worst, clearly). Poison gas, airplanes and machine guns beat the Ethiopians and it STILL took them 8 months to do it. The Emperor Haile Selassie of the time took a world tour and managed to start a fringe religion, Rastafarianism. When the Anglos came took liberate the Ethiopians they grabbed Italian Eritrea. This is where Ethiopia's colonialism begins.

But Haile Selassie was strangled and buried under a toilet when the Derg (Communist Revolutionaries) took power. They soon started a war with Somalia in 1977 over who controled the Ogaden region (where Somalis in Ethiopia live). Then in the 80's the Derg targeted Tigrayans and tried starving them to death to crush their liberation movement. That didn't work out too well because Eritrea was created soon after the Derg backer the Soviet Union fell... along with the Derg.

Ethiopia is now surrounded by ethnic states whose countrymen live within their borders. Thats a nightmare scenario for any 19th Century wannabe. Also, especially if you got a Prussia wannabe next door. Eritreans are the most war-like people today aside from Afghans. Just this year they nearly picked a fight with France over Djibouti. It had a war with Yemen in the mid 90s, and a HUGE war with Ethiopia in 1998 to 2000.

Eritreans fought in trenches using machine guns and artillery WWI style while Ethiopians acted like it had its own General Haig sending human waves over landmines (à la Iran). You have no idea how unusual it is for an African nation to engage in trench warfare or even human wave offensives. I told you, they're 19th Century wannabes. They want their watershed Great War. Ethiopian tanks tried to take the town of Badme on the border but Eritrean artillery smashed their formations. In that one battle, 15,000 Ethiopians were killed. Ethiopians can stomach that. Eritrea which has 2 to 3 million people can't. Hence, the trenches. Soviet weapons tries to destroy one another as SAMS, MiGs, Katyushas and more tried to obliterate the enemy. This happened while we were fascinated with Yugoslavia.

Although hundreds of thousands died. It created something, that something was NATIONALISM. That's what helped put Ethiopia in its current situation: Somalia.

Somalia should be a tight-nit country. They're all the same ethnic group, why can't they get along. I think they would, if their clans let them. Clans are not a good thing. They could divide a nation, ask the Scots! Since the Soviet Union fucked up their country and Siad Barre left. The country has lurched from clan war to clan war until the Union of Islamc Courts came in. Locals got tired of chaos and so they thought the least chaotic thing they understood (the Qur'an) was good enough. Just like how the Taliban came in after Afghan warlords made things intolerable... even for Pashtuns! Ethiopia hates this.

Just like in the olden days, Aksum (Ethiopia) wanted to see Nubia weak and vice versa. The same applies here. Also, the thought of seeing the Indian Ocean again must've made their eyes water. With US aid (America thinks all things Islamic are terrorist) Ethiopia invaded Somalia. So now Ethiopia has got a major Somali problem. Somalians in the Ogaden, Somalis in Somalia. Great. On top of that, Eritrea is helping the Somalis and on TOP OF THAT UN peacekeepers have left the Eritrean-Ethiopian border so I expect them to be at war as soon as Ethiopia leaves Somalia.

What about Djibout? You may ask... Djibouti can go fuck itself. It's France's bitch. Its a pseudo-colony. When Eritrea threatned Djibouti, you know who it calls. FRANCE! Pussies. They don't act like a Horn country at all. Maybe because it isn't.

Besides them. The Horn of Africa is a wonderful place to be a mercenary. Not so good a place if you wish to be a professional pacifist or hippie.Oh, and I hear business is booming for potential Somali pirates. As Tecumseh once said:

'Wage war on the Living, Wage war on the Dead! War now! War forever! War Always!'