Gabaweyn

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The Gabaweyn or Gabwing (also Gabawein or Gobaweyn ) are an ethnic minority in the Gedo region in southern Somalia . Their traditional settlement area lies along the Jubba River between Luuq and Baardheere . Alex de Waal estimated their number at 30,000 in 1994.

They are probably descended from a black African population who lived in that area before the Somali . Today they live as a minority next to the Somali from the clan of the Marehan- Darod in the west and the Rahanweyn (Reewing) in the east. Their livelihood is agriculture, while the Marehan - like most Somali - are traditionally nomadic ranchers; the Rahanweyn, as sedentary farmers and ranchers, are also a minority among the Somali.

Linguistically and culturally, the Gabaweyn are influenced by the Rahanweyn, like them they speak the Af-Maay variant of Somali . Their Maay name is Gabwing , while Gabaweyn is the standard Somali spelling. You are allied with the Gasar Gudde, a subclan of the Sagaal-Rahanweyn; There are also connections to the minority group of the Eyle .

Together with other black African peasant minority groups, they are sometimes referred to as “ Somali Bantu ”, although it is controversial whether they originally spoke a Bantu language or a Cushitic language . The Somali refer to these groups as Jareer , which means something like “hard-haired” or “curly-haired” and, in addition to the hair texture, implies other characteristics such as slightly darker skin color, certain (“softer”) facial features and body shape.

history

Up until the colonial era, the Gabaweyn were dominated by the neighboring Marehan and Rahanweyn. They had no political influence. The entire Gedo region remained politically marginal until 1969 when the Marehan Siad Barre took power in a coup.

Under Barre's dictatorship , Marehan expropriated land from the Gabaweyn from the 1980s onwards by registering it for themselves in accordance with the provisions of the Land Act of 1975 or by displacing the peasants by force of arms. There were plans to build a large dam at Baardheere that would have flooded most of the land, and the Marehan speculated on receiving compensation instead of the Gabaweyn. The Gabaweyn were left with smaller pieces of land or a life as dependent laborers on their land before.

When the United Somali Congress (USC) of the Hawiye clan Siad Barre overthrew in 1991 and thus ended the supremacy of the Marehan, some Gabaweyn joined the USC in the beginning Somali civil war . However, this also took the land and property of the Gabaweyn forcibly and did not protect the Gabaweyn when Darod troops recaptured the area and took revenge on them for the support of the enemy. By 1992 most of the Gabaweyn villages had been abandoned and the residents had fled war and famine in the neighboring countries of Kenya and Ethiopia . In peace negotiations around the region with the support of the international community, the interests of the Gabaweyn were not taken into account. Some Marehan warlords claimed that a group called Gabaweyn never lived on the land they now claim.

In the mid-1990s, the militant Islamist organization al-Ittihad al-Islami , which was accused of having ties to al-Qaida , gained a certain following among the Gabaweyn. While controlling Luuq , she allowed Gabaweyn farmers to return to the surrounding villages and resume their agricultural activities. It was overthrown in 1996 by a military intervention in Ethiopia.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Alex de Waal: The UN and Somalia's Invisible Minorities . In: A Wave of Change: The United Nations and Indigenous Peoples , 1994 culturalsurvival.org
  2. ^ Ioan M. Lewis, Mohamed Haji Mukhtar : Songs from the South . In: African Languages ​​and Cultures. Supplement, No. 3, Voice and Power: The Culture of Language in North-East Africa. Essays in Honor of BW Andrzejewski . 1996
  3. ↑ James Stuart Olson: The peoples of Africa: An Ethnohistorical Dictionary . 1996, p. 200
  4. ^ Catherine Besteman: Unraveling Somalia - Race, Violence, and the Legacy of Slavery . University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999, ISBN 978-0-8122-1688-2 , p. 116