Toward a United States of the Horn of Africa

Nineteen ninety-one was the year the Cold War came to an end. In that same year, two major events took place that attempted to reorder the Horn of Africa. Those events symbolise two opposing answers to the question of how the region should be governed. What we have learned from them is that we need a third answer.

On 24 May 1991, Eritrean forces captured the capital, Asmara, a victory which effectively marked the end of the decades-long war of liberation and ultimately secession from Ethiopia. This was the first such case in post-colonial Africa. With Eritrea’s secession, Ethiopia became the largest landlocked country in the world.

Just six days earlier, on 18 May 1991, the Somali Republic, which was created in 1960, split as Somaliland (a former British colony) declared independence from Somalia (a former Italian colony). 

Eritrea seceded from a union with Ethiopia, which had been imposed on it in 1962, but Somaliland seceded from a greater Somalia to which it had consented.

Ethiopia’s own government ultimately facilitated Eritrea’s recognition by the international community as a sovereign state.

Thirty-four years after its secession, Somaliland is still in search of international recognition in the face of fierce opposition from Somalia. And then, suddenly, Ethiopia, in a memorandum of understanding with Somaliland, suggested on 1 January 2024, that a quid pro quo might be possible after all — diplomatic recognition in return for access to the sea.

If the deal were carried through as planned, it would be the most consequential international event in the Horn of Africa in decades. The hope was that Ethiopia’s recognition would pave the way for similar actions by other states, eventually leading to the birth of the world’s newest state, the Republic of Somaliland.

So to recap the two scenarios:

·        In the case of the Somali Republic, which came into being in 1960, the union of the former British and the former Italian Somaliland was an attempt to reject European colonial boundaries; and

·        in the case of Eritrea in 1962, its annexation to Ethiopia had substituted European colonial boundaries with indigenous imperial expansionism. 

Political tension continues to define the Horn of Africa.

Are we not being blinded by post-colonial logic? Even if Ethiopia and Somaliland had been able to execute the memorandum of understanding as planned, without any negative repercussions, their solution would have fallen short of addressing the seemingly intractable problem of the Horn of Africa. But why is the region chronically unstable, in the first place and what can be done about it for the long term?

All parties have an interest in the prosperity that a more stable region would generate.

The challenge, as so often, is about history. Ethiopia, alone among the states in the Horn of Africa, was never colonised. But its borders were nevertheless a product of domestic struggles and international arrangements made in capitals thousands of miles away. 

The ultimate consequence of the partition of the Horn of Africa was that cohesive nations of people, who should have been governing themselves, found themselves separated by borders into different states. Conversely, those who should have been separated found themselves on the same side of the line as people with conflicting cultures, histories and traditions.

This is the fundamental root of the political instability of the Horn of Africa.

Consequently, what came into being in the region in the post-colonial period was Ethiopia, a state in search of a nation, and Somalia and Djibouti, nations in search of a state. Eritrea is neither a state nor a nation — it is an entity in search of both. A state denotes a mechanism or control; a nation represents a bond of identity.

Over the years, several proposals have been put forward for addressing the challenge of political instability in the Horn of Africa. One element that these proposals had in common was the need to maintain existing colonial borders, even if the countries in the region were to form some kind of union. The logic of avoiding the inevitable disputes and wrangling over a redrawing of boundaries is understandable. But is it compatible with a solution to the underlying problems?

What if our fixation with national borders, customs points and fences is merely entrenching the errors of the past? What if we look instead at governance and decision-making, considering a framework that supports people’s needs without simply recreating existing problems in new locations? 

In fact, this formula is consistent with what is seemingly being practised in Ethiopia at the moment — “ethnic federalism”. But the approach being suggested here also transcends this. The autonomy of different ethnic regions should be disproportional or asymmetric, reflecting the distinctive historical experiences of various regions. Some areas have greater cohesion and more unity and therefore need more autonomy; others less so.

It should be noted that such a concept is not new to Eritrea, either. Eritrea enjoyed special status between 1952 and 1962. It was granted federal status in an otherwise unitary Ethiopia. After a decade, however, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia abrogated the federal treaty with the support of the US, which, because of the Cold War, had a significant geostrategic interest in the region.

Such special status should be extended to different regional entities in the Horn of Africa. If this type of asymmetric constitutionalism is successfully implemented, the result could be the United States of the Horn of Africa. In theory, experimenting with diverse constitutional arrangements to address specific political circumstances and historical needs in other parts of the continent could also serve as a stepping stone toward realising the long-dreamt United States of Africa.

Author’s note: In this essay, I have referred to the Horn of Africa as Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea. The Greater Horn of Africa clearly also encompasses Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya and Uganda.