Issue No. 200

 The war on federalism

On Sunday 15 May, indirect elections will be held in Somalia to elect the new president. The incumbent president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed ‘Farmaajo,’ is running for re-election after more than a year since his term was unduly extended. Farmaajo will be remembered for many things but perhaps his most enduring legacy will be the stranglehold he tried to apply to federalism in Somalia.

Farmaajo was one of the signatories of the Tripartite Agreement of 5  September 2018 in Asmara, together with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy  Ahmed and Eritrean President Isayas Afeworqi. We now know that this agreement was made at the expense of the Tigrayans, who were sacrificed to the respective ambitions of the three heads of state. Revenge was certainly one of the components of this agreement but beyond that, it was the very idea of federalism that the signatories intended to kill on that day in Asmara.

While Eritrea has been ruled “as a personal fiefdom for over 30 years,” in the words of long-time Horn scholar Alex de Waal, Ethiopia and Somalia are federal republics. According to the 1995 constitution, Ethiopia is organised into regions established on ethno-linguistic grounds. There are currently 11 regions. In Somalia, on the other hand, the population is relatively homogeneous in terms of language and religion. It is the clans that structure the country socially but especially geographically. Somaliland, which is predominantly populated by the Issaq, seceded from Somalia in 1991, following the “forgotten genocide” against the Issaq between 1987 and 1989. For various reasons, Somaliland is not yet recognised as a sovereign state by the majority of the international community. The sovereignty of nations and the inviolability of borders have been sacrosanct principles for many heads of state but none more so those who fear their populations may exercise their right to self-determination, especially when they have been victims of ethnic cleansing.

Almost as much as Tigray, Somaliland has become a kind of straw man for opponents of federalism in the Horn of Africa. And arguably no one has done more to oppose Somaliland’s independence, and federalism more generally, than Farmaajo. Since his accession to the Somali leadership in 2017, Farmaajo has consistently centralised power in the federal capital Mogadishu at the expense of the federal states. But Farmaajo is hardly an isolated case. Since taking over Ethiopia in 2018, Abiy Ahmed too has been centralising power in the federal capital, Addis Abeba, at the expense of the federal states.

And who is the sponsor, the mentor, of this common authoritarian, anti federal agenda? Isayas Afeworqi, the Maoist leader of Eritrea, who holds all state power in his hands. Isayas has an absolute hatred for the idea of federalism and, more broadly, for all particularisms. Apart from his personal animosity toward the Tigrayans, it is the ethnic federalism put in place by the TPLF, through the EPRDF coalition that came to power in Ethiopia following the end of the Derg, that frightened Isayas to the point of sending Eritrean troops to commit atrocities that will traumatise the Tigrayans for decades. 

It is not easy to reconcile Isayas’s idea of Eritrea with the fact that his country’s borders were drawn by Italian occupiers. For such an ardent champion of anti-imperialism, this is more than embarrassing. If Isayas had proposed a constructive project, a vision of a future for Eritreans based genuine concern for his subjects’ well-being, then they might have become a people with shared national aspirations enshrined in the state. But today Eritrea is an open-air prison from which its people seek only to escape. Isayas’s authoritarianism is what links a Tigrigna, an Afar, and a Rashaida living inside Eritrea. And Isayas knows very well that his feet are made of clay. Indeed, to leave space for ethnic identities in Eritrea is to open the door to irredentism. And that is why the Tigrayans are a mortal threat to him. Tigrigna and Tigrayans speak the same language, are mostly Orthodox Christians, and share a common culture dating back thousands of years. It is no coincidence that thousands of people fleeing the regime in Asmara have found refuge in Tigray. The fate of these refugees is now very grim. The Afar of Eritrea, a nomadic population restricted in their movements and deprived of their traditional livelihoods, are demanding a federal system and a new constitution. It was in part to break the ties with their brethren on the other side of the border that Isayas made a deal with some Ethiopian Afar leaders.

It is the fear of irredentism that spurred these three heads of state – Isayas, Abiy, and Farmaajo – in their attempt to band together to destroy federalism – or even any hint of federalism – in their respective countries. Yet federalism, based on the idea of limited, localised autonomy, is one of the only solutions that allow diverse populations divided by language, religion, or culture to live together.

Excessive centralisation often has the opposite effect; in its more extreme forms, it leads to intercommunal conflict and separation. So, before crying balkanisation, perhaps we should try to understand what leads states like Somaliland or Tigray to aspire to autonomy or independence: a sense of identity and solidarity forged in response to attempted eradication and a genuine sense of vulnerability that comes from living next door to their executioners.

The scars that leaders like Farmaajo and Abiy will leave behind, due to their attempts to centralise power and dismantle federalism, will take years to heal.  The longer these leaders remain in power, the greater the harm they will cause.

By the Ethiopia Cable Team