Ogaden

Ogaden (pronounced and often spelled Ogadēn; Ogaadeen, ውጋዴ/ውጋዴን) is one of the historical names used for the modern Somali Region which forms the eastern portion of Ethiopia and borders Somalia. It also includes another region in the north known as Haud.

The region is an arid area, and encompasses the desolate plain between the border of Somalia and Ethiopia, extending towards the eastern Ethiopian Highlands where larger cities like Harar and Dire Dawa are located. The primary river in the region is the Shebelle, which is fed by temporary seasonal streams. Towards the southwestern edge of the Ogaden is the source of the Ganale Doria River, which joins Dawa River to become the major Jubba River on the Somali border.

The region has a low population density and is predominantly inhabited by Somali people. The Ogaden is known for its oil and gas reserves, although development efforts have been hindered by the instability prevailing in the area.

Etymology
The origin of the term Ogaden is unknown, however it is usually attributed to the Somali clan of the same name, originally referring only to their land, and eventually expanding to encompass most parts of the modern Somali Region of eastern Ethiopia. An alternative (possibly folk) etymology analyses the name as a combination of the Harari word ūga ("road") and Aden, a city in Yemen, supposedly deriving from an ancient caravan route through the region connecting Harar to the Arabian Peninsula.

During the new region's founding conference, which was held in Dire Dawa in 1992, the naming of the region became a divisive issue, because almost 30 different ethnic Somali clans live in the region. The ONLF sought to name the region ‘Ogadenia’, whilst the non-Ogadeni Somali clans who live in the same region opposed this move. As noted by Abdul Majid Hussein, the naming of the region where there are several Somali clans as ‘Ogadenia’ following the name of a single clan would have been divisive. Finally, the region was named the Somali region.

Demographics
The inhabitants are predominantly ethnic Somalis, of almost 30 clans. The Ogaden clan of the Darod constitute the majority in the region, and were enlisted in the Ogaden National Liberation Movement, which is why the region is associated with the Ogaden clan. However, this is disputed. Other Somali clans in the region are Sheekhaal, Marehan, Isaaq, Geri Koombe Gadabuursi, Issa, Massare, Gabooye, Degodia and Jidle and Karanle clans of the Hawiye.



History
There are few historical texts written about the people who lived in what is known today as the Somali Region, sometimes referred to as "The Ogaden” region of Ethiopia. What formerly was known as Rauso in Late Antiquity could potentially correspond with this region. The vast majority of the inhabitants today are Muslim and ethnically homogenous. In its early history, the Ogaden was inhabited by Harla, a now extinct people. Harla are linked to the Harari and Somali Ogaden clan. Ogaden served as capital of the Makhzumi Dynasty. The region became one of the earliest footholds for the spread of Islam into Africa. At the time, rivalries between the established Muslims in the Ogaden were recurring with those of the littoral in Zeila. Ogaden was part of the Ifat Sultanate in the 13th and beginning of the 14th centuries AD. The borders of the sultanate extended from the northern seaboard of Somalia to the interiors of Ethiopia. The Ifat Sultanate was succeeded by the Adal Sultanate. There was an ongoing conflict between the Adal Sultanate and the Ethiopian Empire throughout this time. During the first half of the 16th century, most of Abyssinia was conquered and came under the rule of Adal when Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Ghazi, the Imam of Adal, took control.

A regional successor to Ifat and Adal, the Somali ruled Ajuran Sultanate governed its territories from Qalafo along the upper Shabelle river in the eastern part of the Ogaden, until its decline over the 17th century.

1800s


The region during the pre-colonial era was neither under Ethiopian rule, nor Terra nullius, as it was occupied by organized Somali communities. It has been observed that geographers mapping out regions of Africa for the British government in the mid to late 1800s made no reference of any Ethiopians in the Ogaden, and maps from before 1884 drew the Ethiopian Empire’s domain as confined by the River Awash. Sir Richard Francis Burton's famous 1856 exploration book First Footsteps in East Africa, makes no mention of an Ethiopian presence while describing his time in the Ogaden. Independent historical accounts are unanimous that previous to the penetration into the region in the late 1880s, Somali clans were free of Ethiopian and Shewan control.

Menelik's invasions (1887-1897)
In the 1890s Ethiopian raiding parties led by Ras Makonnen made incursions into the Ogaden based on the supposed historical lands of Ethiopia which stretched from Khartoum to Lake Victoria according to Emperor Menelik. Ethiopian victories in these raids were largely due to the large amounts of firearms they received through the French port of Djibouti, whereas the European powers barred the Somalis from receiving any type of firearms. British colonial administrator Francis Barrow Pearce writes the following concerning the Ethiopian raids into the Ogaden:"The Somalis, although good and brave fighting men, cannot help themselves. They have no weapons except the hide shield and spear, while their oppressors are, as has already been recorded, armed with modern rifles, and they are by no means scrupulous concerning the use of them in asserting their authority…The Abyssinians themselves have no more claim (except that of might) to dominate the wells than a Fiji Islander would have to interfere with a London waterworks company."However the Ethiopian aggressors were also defeated numerous times by poorly armed Somalis such as in 1890 near Imi where Makonnen’s troops had suffered a large defeat to Reer Amaden warriors. A British hunter Colonel Swayne, who visited Imi in February 1893, was shown "the remains of the bivouac of an enormous Abyssinian army which had been defeated some two or three years before." In 1897 in order to appease Menelik’s expansionist policy Britain ceded almost half of the British Somaliland protectorate to Ethiopia in the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1897. Ethiopian authorities have since then based their claims to the Ogaden upon the 1897 treaty and the exchange of letters which followed it. I.M. Lewis argues a subtly different interpretation of this treaty, emphasizing that "the lost lands in the Haud Reserve Area which was excised from the Protectorate [i.e. British Somaliland] was not, however ceded to Ethiopia." Legal scholar and former President of the International Court of Justice, Abdulqawi Yusuf has argued citing the Island of Palmas Case, that since the British government had no title to the land which it had ceded during the treaty, that such cession was null and void. A similar interpretation was put forward in parliament by British MP Fred Willey in 1955 in regards to the legality of the treaty: "At any rate there was a case that the 1897 Treaty did not succeed in doing what it purported to do and that it was not within the power of the British Government to transfer these territories."As Emperor Menelik II carried his campaign of indiscriminate raiding and attacks against the Somalis of the Ogaden region between 1890 and 1899, Somali clans residing in the plains of Jigjiga were in particular targeted. The escalating frequency and violence of the raids resulted in Somalis consolidating behind the Dervish Movement under the lead of Sayyid Mohamed Abdullah Hassan.

1900s
As the Ethiopian Empire began expanding into Somali territories at the start of the 1890s, Jigjiga came under intermittent military occupation until 1900. At the start of the year, Abyssinian troops occupied the town with the construction of a fort in the outskirts. Subsequently, the anti-colonial Dervish Movement led by Sayid Mohamed Abdullah Hassan had its first major battle when it attacked the Ethiopian forces occupying Jigjiga to free livestock that had been looted from the local population. The Ethiopian hold on Ogaden at the start of the 20th century was tenuous, and administration in the region was "sketchy in the extreme". Sporadic tax raids into the region often failed and Ethiopian administrators and military personnel only resided in Harar and Jijiga. Attempts at taxation in the region were called off following the massacre of 150 Ethiopian troops in January 1915. Due to native hostility the region was barely occupied by Ethiopian authorities, who exerted little presence east of Jijiga until the Anglo-Ethiopian boundary commission in 1934 and the Wal Wal incident in 1935. Only in 1934 as the boundary commission attempted to demarcate the border, did Somalis who had been transferred to the Ethiopian Empire during the 1897 treaty realize what was happening. This long period of ignorance about the transfer of their regions was facilitated by the lack of 'any semblance' of effective administration of control being present over the Somalis to indicate that they were being annexed by Ethiopia.

In the years leading up to the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1935, the Ethiopian hold on the Ogaden remained tenuous. After the Italian conquest of Ethiopia in 1936, Ogaden was attached to Italian Somaliland, becoming the Somalia Governorate within the new colony of Italian East Africa. Following the British conquest of this colony, the Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement placed Ogaden under temporary British control. The British sought to unite Ogaden with British Somaliland and the former Italian Somaliland to realize Greater Somalia which was supported by many Somalis. Ethiopia unsuccessfully pleaded before the London Conference of the Allied Powers to gain the Ogaden and Eritrea in 1945, but their persistent negotiations and pressure from the United States eventually persuaded the British to cede Ogaden to Ethiopia in 1948. The last remaining British controlled parts of Haud were returned to Ethiopia in 1955.

Post-Somali Independence
During the 1963 Ogaden Revolt the first major armed resistance by Somalis to Ethiopian rule post independence began in the region after imperial authorities had attempted to tax the population. The revolt and counterinsurgency campaign that followed resulted in the deterioration of Ethio–Somali relations and would lead to the first war between the two nations in 1964. In the late 1970s, internal unrest in the 'Ogaden' resumed. The Western Somali Liberation Front used guerilla tactics to resist Ethiopian rule. Ethiopia and Somalia fought the Ogaden War over control of this region and its peoples.

1980s to 1990s
During the new region's founding conference, which was held in Dire Dawa in 1992, the naming of the region became a divisive issue, because almost 30 Somali clans live in the Somali Region of Ethiopia. The ONLF sought to name the region ‘Ogadenia’, whilst the non-Ogadeni Somali clans who live in the same region opposed this move. As noted by Abdul Majid Hussein, the naming of the region where there are several Somali clans as ‘Ogadenia’ following the name of a single clan would have been divisive. Finally, the region was named the Somali region.

2000s
In 2007, the Ethiopian Army launched a military crackdown in Ogaden after Ogaden rebels killed dozens of civilian staff workers and guards at an Ethiopian oil field. The main rebel group is the Ogaden National Liberation Front under its Chairman Mohamed O. Osman, which is fighting against the Ethiopian government. Some Somalis who inhabit in the 'Ogaden' claimed that Ethiopian military kill civilians, destroy the livelihood of many of the ethnic Somalis and commit crimes against the nomads in the region. However, testimony before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs revealed massive brutality and killings by the ONLF rebels, which the Ethiopian government labels "terrorists." The extent of this war can't be established due to a media blockade in the 'Ogaden' region. Some international rights organizations have accused the Ethiopian government of committing abuses and crimes that "violate laws of war," as a recent report by the Human Rights Watch indicates. Other reports have claimed that Ethiopia has bombed, killed, and raped many Somalis in the Ogaden region, while the United States continues to arm Ethiopia in the United States' ongoing War on Terror in the Horn of Africa.

Geography
The Somali Region, the second largest region in Ethiopia is around 300000 km2, and borders Djibouti, Kenya and Somalia. Important towns include Jijiga, Degahbur, Gode, Kebri Dahar, Fiq, Shilabo, Kelafo, Werder and Danan.

Ecology
The Ogaden is part of the Somali Acacia–Commiphora bushlands and thickets ecoregion. It has been a historic habitat for the endangered African wild dog, Lycaon pictus; However, this canid is thought by some to have been extirpated from Ogaden.

The Ogaden is a plateau, with an elevation above sea level that ranges from 1500 m in the northwest, falling to about 300 m along the southern limits and the Wabi Shebelle valley. The areas with altitudes between 1400 and 1600 m are characterised as semi-arid, receiving as much as 500–600 mm of rainfall annually. More typical of the Ogaden is an average annual rainfall of 350 mm and less. The landscape consists of dense shrubland, bush grassland and bare hills. In more recent years, the Ogaden has suffered from increasingly erratic rainfall patterns, which has led to an increasing frequency of major droughts: in 1984–85; 1994; and most recently in 1999–2000, during which pastoralists claim to have lost 70–90 percent of their cattle.