Shifta war

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Shifta war
date 1963-1967
place Northeast kenya
output armistice
Parties to the conflict

KenyaKenya Kenya

Northern Frontier District Liberation Movement Somalia
SomaliaSomalia 

losses
4,000–6,000 dead

The Shifta War was a conflict in the northeastern region of Kenya in which parts of the local Somali population fought for the area to become part of Greater Somalia . It began after Kenya gained independence from Great Britain in 1963. The name “Shifta War” was coined by the Kenyan government, after the Somali word shifta for “bandit”.

To counter insurgency, the General Service Units of the Kenyan army and police relocated civilians to government-controlled villages and killed Somali herders in large numbers. The real war ended in 1967 when Somalia's President Abdirashid Ali Shermarke signed a ceasefire agreement with Kenya. Unorganized bandit activities, sometimes combined with secessionist agitation, continued in the following decades, however, the state of emergency in northeast Kenya lasted until 1991. The conflict and counterinsurgency measures of the state brought about significant changes in traditional life in the region and contributed to the transition from nomadism to an often precarious sedentary life.

Background and history

In the 19th century, invaded Somalia from the clans of the Darod and Hawiye from the east front in today's northeastern Kenya. In doing so, they largely pushed the existing Orma and Borana - Oromo population to the west. The British colonial power of British East Africa saw this expansion of the Somali, which were considered hostile and warlike, as a threat and ended it around the turn of the 20th century.

From 1926 to 1934, the British colonial authorities closed the Northern Frontier District ( Northern Frontier District , NFD) of British East Africa, which is largely inhabited by ethnic Somali , and consists of today's Kenyan counties Garissa , Isiolo , Mandera , Marsabit and Wajir , so that people can enter and leave the country was only possible with the appropriate passports.

Despite these restrictions on freedom of movement, traditional, mostly nomadic, livestock rearing in this arid region provided a good livelihood, and the non-Somali - who made up a small minority of the population - were doing relatively well economically. The anthropologist Paul Baxter wrote in 1953:

“The Boran and Sakuye were well fed and well clothed, and although pastoral life is always physically demanding, the people lived dignified and satisfactory lives ... They clearly had several years of economic prosperity. The district commissioner commented in his handover report in 1940: 'The Ewaso-Boran have degenerated into an idle and cowardly bunch through their prosperity and good living' ... "

When it gave independence to British Somaliland on June 26, 1960 and it merged with Italian Somaliland to form Somalia , the British government declared that all Somali-inhabited areas should be united under one administration. When the British colonial areas in East Africa were dissolved, the NFD was added to Kenya , although the area is largely inhabited by Somali and, according to a popular poll, a large majority of the population wanted to join Somalia. The self-determination of the Somali should be ensured by the federal system that the British proposed for the constitution of Kenya. However, soon after independence in 1963, Kenya adopted a centralized system. Representatives of Somalia saw this as a deliberate deception of the Somali by Great Britain:

“It was clear that for the past 18 months the British government has not only deliberately misled the Somali government, but has also deceptively encouraged the residents of the North Eastern Province to believe that their right to self-determination could be peaceful and legal by the British government Ways are granted. "

Under the leadership of the Northern Province People's Progressive Party (NPPPP), the Somali in the NFD campaigned for unification with Somalia. The Kenyan government reacted to this on various occasions with repressive measures:

“Somali leaders were routinely taken into preventive detention, where they remained until the late 1970s. The North Eastern Province (along with other areas of Kenya) was not open to the public as a scheduled area (closed to all foreigners, including parliamentarians, ostensibly to protect nomadic residents), and news from the region was very difficult to get. However, there have been a number of reports accusing Kenyans of slaughtering entire villages of Somali citizens and establishing large 'protected villages' - in fact, concentration camps . The government refused to recognize the ethnic- irredentist motives of the Somali and always referred to the shifta (bandit) problem in the area in official statements . "

The Conflict (1963-1967)

Skirmishes broke out between the Kenyan army and the insurgents of the Northern Frontier District Liberation Movement (NFDLM) supported by Somalia. Thereupon Kenya under Jomo Kenyatta signed a defense agreement (Mutual Defense Agreement) with Ethiopia under Haile Selassie in 1964 , which was also confronted with Somali territorial claims (on Ogaden ). The two countries wanted to react together to Somali irredentism . However, the agreement had little practical impact, as neither country was able to stop arms deliveries from Somalia to Somali rebels in their area.

The government imposed a state of emergency on the area. This allowed the security forces to detain people for up to 56 days without trial, to confiscate the property of communities accused of “banditry” and to restrict freedom of assembly and movement. Along the border with Somalia a "forbidden zone" was established, and illegal carrying of firearms which was the death penalty mandatory (mandatory) . “Special courts” were also set up, which did not offer any legal security. The Northeast was declared a Special District and was under almost unlimited government control, including the ability to arrest and relocate entire tribes, and to confiscate any land. In order not to alarm the public, however, the Voice of Kenya was instructed not to label the conflict a "border dispute" and a government committee decided to name the rebels "Shiftas" to portray them as common criminals and political character of the conflict into the background.

In reality, the Kenyan government saw the rebels and the growing strength of the Somali military as a serious threat. At the time of its independence in 1960, Somalia had a weak army of just 5,000 men. In 1963, however, it asked the Soviet Union for support, which was also granted with a loan of US $ 32 million. By 1969, 800 Somali officers had been trained in the Soviet Union, the army was well equipped and had grown to 23,000 soldiers. In addition to fears of an open war against Somalia, the rebels in Kenya made increased use of landmines . In a letter dated July 29, 1966, Permanent Secretary of Defense Danson Mlamba warned Permanent Secretary of Information and Broadcasting, Peter Gachathi, in charge of Propaganda :

"... increasing casualties of arms and police ... and the most recent incident, which we have kept silent about, in which a police Land Rover was blown up by a land mine, the vehicle was wrecked and two officers were killed, is a very serious development. "

The Kenyan government's response may have been inspired by the infamous counterinsurgency activities used by the British during the Mau Mau uprising . Gachathi said that one should perhaps “cut a slice of the (British) operations during the state of emergency against the Mau-Mau, which, you will certainly agree, were quite successful” (“take a leaf from the (British Operations carried out during the emergency against the Mau Mau movement which, I am sure you will agree, were considerably effective. ”) Kenyan fears peaked in 1967 and a special government committee was set up to prepare for an open war against Somalia. A policy of forced settlement in villages (villagization) was implemented in the conflict area . In 1967 the population was resettled in 14 so-called manyattas , villages guarded by government troops. The East Africa expert Alex de Waal calls the result of this policy an "attack by the military on the entire lifestyle of nomadic ranchers" (a military onslaught on the entire pastoral way of life) . Large numbers of cattle were killed or confiscated so that on the one hand the guerrillas could not use them (as a means of transport) and on the other hand the civilian population was forced to leave their herds and move into the manyattas . Deprived of their livelihood in this way, many nomads became an impoverished urban underclass, while a number of educated Kenyan Somali people left the country. The government also replaced the sultans, traditional heads of the clans, with chiefs appointed by it .

In 1967 Zambia's President Kenneth Kaunda brokered peace talks between Kenyatta and Somali Prime Minister Mohammed Haji Ibrahim Egal . This led to an armistice in October of the same year. The manyatta strategy is seen as important in ending the uprising, but it could also be that Somalia found the costs and risks of war simply too high.

consequences

The forced settlement in villages had lasting consequences for the economic livelihood and led to economic segregation : only part of the population was able to return to cattle breeding. The nomads' freedom of movement remained restricted. Many who had the means turned to trade or sedentary agriculture, while poorer residents became wage laborers and the poorest became permanently dependent on foreign aid. The anthropologist John Baxter wrote of the village in the Isiolo district he visited in 1953:

“In 1982 there were only a few lucky ones who lived from raising cattle. About 40 percent of Boran and Sakuye in the district had moved to shabby suburban settlements around the new administratively established towns. There they denied a meager existence by hanging around the gas stations waiting for odd jobs , selling miraa ( Kath ) on the streets, illegally producing alcohol , engaging in prostitution and so on. "

In the decades after the Shifta War, banditry and clan feuds remained widespread in northeastern Kenya, and there were occasional rebel activities and countermeasures by the state. After Somalia's support for its secessionist activities ended, many armed men who had fought as rebels (again) turned to the occasional clan feuds and cattle theft. This had happened before, but the fighters were now much better equipped than in the past. With the sultans, who were traditionally responsible for peace-building between the clans and who were deposed from the state during the Shifta conflict, there was no generally recognized authority for conflict resolution in the region.

The Kenyan media portrayed the region as uncontrollable and violent, and the Somali were regularly accused of "banditry" and other crimes. The transfer to the northeast was equivalent to a penalty transfer for officials. In 1984 the "Wagalla massacre" happened, during which the provincial commissioner ordered the security forces to set up 5000 men from the Degodia Hawiye clan on the Wagalla strip in Wajir , open fire on them and then hide the bodies. In 2000 the government admitted the killing of 380 men in the massacre, but independent estimates put the death toll in excess of 2,000. The state of emergency was lifted in 1991, but the security situation in the region remained fragile and the fight against real and alleged Somali criminal activity continued to justify widespread military rule in the region. It was not until the end of 2000 that the violence under the provincial commissioner and Somali Mohammoud Saleh fell significantly.

Individual evidence

  1. Department of Social Sciences at the University of Hamburg on the Shifta War ( Memento of the original from June 24, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.sozialwiss.uni-hamburg.de
  2. see en: General Service Unit
  3. ^ Catherine Besteman: Unraveling Somalia - Race, Violence, and the Legacy of Slavery , University of Pennsylvania Press 1999, ISBN 978-0-8122-1688-2 : pp. 57f.
  4. a b c Boniface Ongeri and Victor Obure: Fading images: How province is fighting one-eyed bandit's legacy ( Memento of the original from March 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , in: business.highbeam.com, December 9, 2004 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / business.highbeam.com
  5. ^ Nene Mburu: "Contemporary Banditry in the Horn of Africa: Causes, History and Political Implications" (PDF, 118  KB ; 121 kB), in Nordic Journal of African Studies 8 (2): 89-107 (1999) (p. 99)
  6. a b Africa Watch Committee: Kenya: Taking Liberties , Yale University Press 1991 (p. 269)
  7. ^ Women's Rights Project: The Human Rights Watch Global Report on Women's Human Rights , Yale University Press 1995 (p. 121)
  8. ^ Francis Vallat: First report on succession of states in respect of treaties: International Law Commission twenty-sixth session 6 May-26 July 1974 , United Nations 1974 (p.20)
  9. ^ Paul TW Baxter, 1993, The 'New' East African Pastoralist: An Overview , in: John Markakis (Ed.), Conflict and the Decline of Pastoralism in the Horn of Africa , London: MacMillan, pp. 145-146, cit. in Alex de Waal , 1997, Famine Crimes: Politics & the Disaster Relief Industry in Africa , African Issues series, African Rights & the International African Institute, ISBN 0-253-21158-1 (p. 39)
    the Boran and the Sakuye were well-nourished and well-clothed and, though a pastoral life is always physically demanding, people led dignified and satisfying life ... They had clearly been prospering for some years. In 1940, the District Commissioner commented in his Handing Over Report: "The Ewaso Boran have degenerated through wealth and soft living into an idle and cowardly set" ...
  10. David D. Laitin: Politics, Language, and Thought: The Somali Experience , University Of Chicago Press, 1977 (p.75)
  11. ^ Women's Rights Project: The Human Rights Watch Global Report on Women's Human Rights , Yale University Press 1995, p. 121
  12. ^ Francis Vallat: First report on succession of states in respect of treaties: International Law Commission twenty-sixth session 6 May-26 July 1974 , United Nations 1974, (p. 20)
  13. ^ Countrystudies.us: Somalia: Pan-Somalism
  14. ^ A b c d Maj. Tom Wanambisi: The Somali Dispute: Kenya Beware , for the Marine Corps Command and Staff College , April 6, 1984 (on globalsecurity.org)
  15. It was evident that the British Government has not only deliberately misled the Somalia Government during the course of the last eighteen months, but has also deceitfully encouraged the people of North Eastern Province to believe that their right to self-determination could be granted by the British Government through peaceful and legal means.
  16. Bruce Baker: Escape from Domination in Africa: Political Disengagement & Its Consequences , Africa World Press 2003 (p. 83)
  17. ^ Rhoda E. Howard: Human Rights in Commonwealth Africa , Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 1986 (p. 95)
  18. Somali leaders were routinely placed in preventive detention, where they remained well into the late 1970s. The North Eastern Province was closed to general access (along with other parts of Kenya) as a "scheduled" area (ostensibly closed to all outsiders, including members of parliament, as a means of protecting the nomadic inhabitants), and news from it was very difficult to obtain. A number of reports, however, accused the Kenyans of mass slaughters of entire villages of Somali citizens and of setting up large "protected villages" - in effect concentration camps. The government refused to acknowledge the ethnically based irredentist motives of the Somalis, making constant reference in official statements to the shifta (bandit) problem in the area.
  19. a b c d e John Kamau, East African Standard : How Kenya Averted War With Somalia , January 18, 2004 (on somalilandtimes.net)
  20. a b de Waal 1997 (p. 40)
  21. mounting casualties to the army and police ... and the last incident, which we are keeping quiet about, when a police Land Rover was blown up by a mine which killed two officers and wrecked the vehicle is a very serious development.
  22. a b Mburu 1999 (p. 100)
  23. Baxter 1993, p. 143, cit. in de Waal, p. 39
    In 1982, only a few fortunate ones still maintained themselves through stock pastoralism. Some 40 percent of the Boran and Sakuye of the District had been driven to peri-urban shanty villages in the new administrative townships. There, they eked out a bare subsistence, hanging around the petrol stations for odd jobs, hawking for miraa , making illicit alcohol, engaging in prostitution and the like.
  24. Vigdis Broch-Due: Violence and Belonging: The Quest for Identity in Post-colonial Africa , 1 edition, Routledge 2005 (pp. 174–175)
  25. de Waal 1997, p. 41; Wagalla Massacre: Families Demand Payment ( Memento of the original dated February 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , The East African Standard , February 26, 2005 (on benadir-watch.com) (PDF, 13.4  KB ; 14 kB); BBC News: Kenya admits mistakes over 'massacre' , October 18, 2000 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.benadir-watch.com
  26. de Waal 1997 (p. 41)