PREVIEW
Egypt and Somalia have signed a military pact to scupper Ethiopia’s trade-off with Somaliland for a port in the Gulf of Aden
Nothing better illustrates the radical shift in regional relations than the defence agreement signed by Egypt and the Federal Government of Somalia on 14 August, two days after Ankara failed to broker a settlement between Addis Ababa and Mogadishu.
That defence agreement between Egypt and Somalia seemed to bring the region back to the 1970s, with warmongering and nationalistic rhetoric firing up public opinion.
There were claims of 10,000 Egyptian troops landing to back up Somalia’s federal government while combat aircraft and missiles were being readied to take on Ethiopia. For many, anything seemed possible as politicians turned up the jingoism. But nearly nothing was true. And little was realistic.
What has been unfolding in the Horn of Africa goes far beyond the bilateral dispute between Ethiopia and Somalia. That was triggered by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s trade-off announced on New Year’s Day: Ethiopia would recognise the ‘territorial integrity’ of Somaliland, which broke away from Somalia in 1991, in exchange for a lease on 20 kilometres of coast in the Gulf of Aden (AC Vol 65 No 1, Reality catches up with gambler Abiy & Vol 65 No 2, Why Abiy and Muse signed a 'memorandum of misunderstanding').
This prospect was eagerly seized by Somaliland leader Muse Bihi Abdi, who celebrated the breakthrough. Diplomats in Addis Ababa were far less convinced. Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen left the government a few weeks later (AC Vol 65 No 4, Demeke's exit points to deepening rifts).
Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud saw his own opportunity to recast the region’s power map (AC Vol 65 No 16, Djibouti joins fight against the Abiy-Bihi pact). He signed a defence agreement with Turkey in February to protect Somalia’s coastline and train its naval force.
And eight months later, Somalia has signed a military agreement with Egypt, which has just ended a 10-year froideur with Turkey. That means Somalia has won the backing of both Cairo and Ankara, two of the most powerful states in the region, following the rapprochement between Presidents Abdel Fattah el Sisi and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Yet the Cairo-Mogadishu agreement, whose text is still unpublished and has not been passed by any parliament, is breaking the old order in the region. It helps Mogadishu but it is also a way of Egypt and Turkey signalling to the Gulf States that they will independently pursue their interests in the Horn of Africa.
Grand strategy
Ethiopia’s securocrats may read the treaty as a way for Egypt to target the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), but it has a much wider logic for El Sisi and Erdoğan (Dispatches 19/7/23, Abiy and Sisi agree to restart Nile dam talks).
Somalia’s Hassan Sheikh has travelled twice to Cairo since Ethiopia signed its memorandum of understanding with Somaliland. It was after the second round of talks in Ankara broke up on 12 August that Hassan Sheikh signed the deal with Egypt.
Somali representatives complained that Ethiopia insisted it wanted to negotiate on the Somaliland question but declined to put a credible proposal on the table. That reminded others of the Addis Ababa position on the filling of the GERD that so angered Cairo.
Beyond countering Abiy Ahmed, Cairo wanted to reinforce its regional position in the Horn. As a negotiating party in the Gaza war, Cairo has nurtured closer ties with the United States despite buying Chinese fighter jets to replace its old F16s. On 11 September, the US State Department said it would transfer US$1.3 billion to Egypt, the full US contribution to Cairo’s defence budget, including $320 million that was thrice frozen under the Biden administration’s human rights conditions.
Egypt also calculates that Washington’s tilt towards Asia and strategic interest in Eastern Europe leaves more room to manoeuvre in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East. That’s unlikely to change whatever the outcome of the US elections in November. Sisi was Donald Trump’s ‘favourite dictator’ in the words of the former US President. If elected, Trump is likely to show more interest in business in the region than grand strategy. And Kamala Harris is unlikely to break with the Biden administration’s focus on Asia. Her two key foreign policy advisors, Philip Gordon and Rebecca Lissner, will argue for stability above all in the region. And Sisi will be selling Egypt’s contribution on that front.
Some may question Cairo’s capacity. When Cairo joined with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia to intervene in Yemen and blockade Qatar, the alliance failed on both counts. We hear Sisi didn’t appreciate comments from senior Saudis on the Egyptian army’s role in the Yemen war.
Cairo wants to seize the initiative in the region before the US elections, positioning itself as a key interlocutor for whichever external power tries to regulate the conflicts there.
Sisi is claiming a new resolve to address the Sudan war. His intelligence director, General Abbas Kamel, visited Port Sudan on 23 August and proposed relaunching talks in Manama. Cairo argues that its first round of talks in Manama proved more successful than the US-Saudi backed negotiations in Jeddah and Switzerland.
And signing a military agreement with Somalia re-establishes Egypt as a leading stakeholder in the Horn. By proposing to send troops and weapons, it positions itself as a contender in the ring with Turkey and the UAE. Cairo is now reinforcing Ankara’s backing for Mogadishu against Ethiopia but also countering the UAE. Here, Egypt has taken on the UAE’s Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al Nahayan (MBZ) on two separate issues: Abu Dhabi’s strong backing for the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan’s war while Cairo backs the Sudan Armed Forces under General Abdel Fattah al Burhan.
On both its backing for SAF in Sudan and supporting Somalia against Ethiopia, Cairo is clashing with the UAE despite Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund investing $24bn in Egypt’s El Hekma peninsula. It may be that UAE officials are beginning to regret their bet on Ethiopia and Somaliland. But it has invested heavily in Berbera and wants to protect that.
After years of confrontations between Ankara and Cairo over Libya, Syria, Iran and the blockade on Qatar, the two countries’ common cause in the Horn of Africa may send a message to the UAE that their diplomatic autonomy will prevail despite the avalanche of petro-dollars.
Yet the military weight of the Egypt-Somalia may be less than its diplomatic significance. Egypt’s military underwhelmed with Saudi Arabia and the UAE in the Yemen war. Two plane loads of weapons and ammunition sent to Mogadishu will not change the balance of forces against Al Shabaab or Ethiopia.
If Cairo sends troops to Somalia they are likely to join the internationally funded new African Union Forces (AUSSOM) deploying early next year. Following Ankara’s lead, Egypt may celebrate the defence agreement for its non-military benefits: oil and gas prospecting, state contracts, and pressure on Ethiopia. But there is no clear commitment to put thousands of troops on the ground.
FGS motivations
Angered by Ethiopia’s inflexibility in the Ankara talks, Somalia’s Hassan Sheikh opted to reinforce ties with Cairo. He wanted to build an arc of opposition against Abiy Ahmed, even if the defence pacts would not be fully implemented. His strategy is more diplomatic than military. It’s hard to see how the fragmented Somali National Army can coordinate its various commitments with Turkey, Egypt, Djibouti and Uganda at the same time.
Constitutionally, Hassan Sheikh should get the parliament to ratify the agreement with Cairo. But he may repeat the tactics he used for the defence pact with Turkey: get parliament to vote for it without providing the detailed texts to the MPs. None of these agreements are legally binding yet, but two planeloads of weapons count for a lot in Mogadishu.
Nationalist references to the 1977 Ogaden War between Ethiopia and Somalia may prove double-edged. Few Somalis today seem keen to fight for a Greater Somalia. Somalia’s losses in the Ogaden War accelerated a breakdown leading to a civil war.
In claiming a Greater Somalia, Mogadishu politicians triggered concerns in Nairobi and Djibouti, as well as in Addis Ababa or Jigjiga. Hassan Sheikh strikes ultra-nationalist positions for electoral reasons. It allows him to distract Somalis from the lack of progress in the offensive against Al Shabaab. The government is also vulnerable on accusations that it is colluding with private entities collecting taxes or taking over state companies without accountability.
Somalia’s presidential campaign has already started. For Hassan Sheikh, the Greater Somalia rhetoric is a good way to sideline opponents such as former President Mohammed Abdullah Mohammed ‘Farmajo’.
People in Mogadishu population strongly backed Hassan Sheikh’s line and demonstrated against Ethiopia. Reactions elsewhere were more reserved because of Ethiopia’s influence on local elites.
The threat of conflict with Ethiopia could weaken Somalia’s already fragmented federalism. Galmudug and Hirshabelle endorsed Mogadishu’s stance, while South-West states opposed it. Puntland and Jubaland are holding their counsel for now.
Ethiopia’s influence in Somalia’s South-West State (SWS) grew as it built a proxy force, the Rahanweyne Resistance Army. And South West President Abdiaziz Hasan Mohamed (Lafta Gareen) was a member of the force. And in the state, Ethiopian troops help secure the capital, Baydhabo, and the main cities.
Concerns have been raised for months since the departure or the change of status of Ethiopian troops, which was under discussion at the end of ATMIS. That explains the worries about the exit of the Ethiopians. Elders and politicians claim that they are better protected by Ethiopian than Egyptian troops.
That’s a direct challenge to Somalia’s federal constitution that makes policy on the presence of foreign troops the sole responsibility of the federal government. Yet one can easily question the spontaneity of demonstrations in favour of Ethiopian troops.
So far, only a few Egyptian soldiers are on the ground in Mogadishu. Nobody knows when the others will join. Ethiopian troops could not boast of more successes than other national contingents in the African Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS).
Hawiye people remember how Ethiopian troops bombed their cities after they intervened in December 2006 to overthrow the Islamic Courts Union. Al Shabaab opposes both Egypt and Turkey. But it cannot yet capitalise on the tensions between Abiy and Hassan Sheikh. This may change if fighting starts over such incidents as Ethiopian troops refusing to leave Bakool or taking a more aggressive posture elsewhere.
Reactions
Ethiopia’s response to the Egypt-Somalia pact was the loudest because it signalled the failure of its policy towards Mogadishu and the breakdown of a negotiating track.
Turkey, a big investor in Ethiopia, signed a defence agreement with Somalia’s government but kept its significance below the radar. It pushed for mediation, although there was no sign that Addis Ababa was interested in solving the problem that Abiy Ahmed had created. Such diplomatic agility isn’t likely from Egypt.
Abiy Ahmed wrongly calculated that Hassan Sheikh would not challenge Ethiopia’s role in Somalia. Perhaps Abiy’s messianic vision of Ethiopia’s role in the Horn clouds his understanding of how others see his regime: an autocratic, warmongering, and eventually weak power that is unable to keep Ethiopia at peace.
On 8 September, Ethiopia’s Chief of Staff, General Birhanu Jula, declared Egypt the ‘historical enemy of Ethiopia’ since ‘they are the ones who have done everything to weaken us throughout our history. They are the ones who kept us away from the sea.’ No one checks such false history but it is dangerous as it could trigger conflict.
For all that, an attack on the GERD is improbable now. Sisi had several chances to organise an onslaught when Egypt was closely connected with the SAF in the early months of Sudan’s civil war against the RSF in mid-2023. Now Ethiopian strategists are probably right to believe that Cairo’s position is now weaker than before the Addis-Mogadishu crisis erupted this year.
Ethiopia’s western partners and Turkey will warn off Cairo from more adventurous tactics. Now Sisi’s aim is more to show the flaws in Ethiopia’s leadership. It’s well aware that any military attack on Ethiopia would jeopardise the massive financial support it receives from western and Gulf states.
Somaliland is more ambivalent. Any humiliation of Abiy may boost military support for Hargeisa, particularly as Muse Bihi is planning operations against Las Anood and Eerigaavo to re-establish some form of Isaaq unity before the November elections.
Differences between Addis Ababa and Hargeisa were exacerbated when a new Ethiopian Consul-General, Ambassador Teshome Shunde, was appointed on 31 August 2024. Hargeisa talked up the grade of the new appointee and his aim to ‘promote economic and people-to-people connectivities’.
For now, the winner of the changing balance in the Horn is Ankara, while the loser might be Abu Dhabi. Turkey sustains connections with all actors in the Horn and the Gulf and flexible even when requests from its regional partners seem contradictory.
Its defence industries and economic leverage give Turkey a place no Gulf state can have. Abu Dhabi may resent so many governments benefiting from its largesse – though but few are ready to endorse the UAE’s policies.
To cap this, Turkey is boosting its military presence in Qatar, talking to all Somali parties and their powerful regional allies, then applying to be a member of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Viewed from outside the region, this latest crisis in the Horn provides a compelling picture of how the new world order will respond to the threat of conflict in such a geopolitically contested area.
Whatever they may be doing in the shadows, western governments such as the United States, Britain and the EU are almost entirely absent as regional states and middle powers redraw the political map in the Horn.
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