The Unsettled Southern Ethiopian-Somali Boundary on the Eve of Decolonization: Political Confrontation and Human Interactions in the Ogaadeen Borderland

Abstract

Historically, the Ethiopian-Somali borderland has been marked by significant confrontation and recurring struggle. Since the Scramble for Africa during the late nineteenth century, and even more so since the end of the Second World War, it has remained one of the most contested terrains in Africa. During the 1890s, the Ogaadeen region was included in the Ethiopian empire “to secure its sovereignty” against European maneuvers, as part of the process of state reform and modernization led by Emperor Menilek II, which culminated in the victory over the Italians at Adwa in 1896.1 While the general pattern of the European conquest and partition of Africa was related to diplomatic bargaining among the colonial powers, without any acknowledgment of African kingdoms, polities, or social hierarchies, the Horn of Africa was a remarkable exception to this trend, since the Ethiopian empire took part in the sequence of diplomatic events that resulted in the boundary agreements signed in 1897 by Emperor Menelik