Somalia Crowned Ethiopia As The Leader Of Africa! by Khalid Hassan Yusuf

Somalia and Ethiopia are located in East Africa and have common borders, and a common conflict history, and Ethiopia occupies Somali lands granted to it by the British occupation of Somalia in 1948-1954. This led to the ongoing wars and conflicts between the two countries and political conflicts that still exist until the present. Somalia and Ethiopia are among the founding countries of the Organization of African Unity, which was established in 1963, the year before the outbreak of the first war between the two countries, after Addis Ababa attacked Somalia. Africa, against the background of determining the headquarters of the Organization of African Unity.

"In the context of the competition between those countries, the outcome of the choice between Ethiopia and Senegal to head the regional organization ended, and the vote of Somalia was likely to win one of the two countries at the headquarters of the organization, and the Ethiopian Foreign Minister, Ketema Yifiro, continued. And he was a shrewd man with his Somali counterpart, Abdallahi Issa Mahmoud, and hosted him for a dinner at the Piassu Hotel, as stated in the memoirs of the Ethiopian Foreign Minister. Abdullahi Issa replied, "Are we not opponents؟
Ketema Yifiro began his speech by saying: “We need to get your vote". Abdullahi Issa’s response was: “Aren’t we opponents؟” The Ethiopian Foreign Minister went on to say: “Our brotherhood and our closeness to each other are greater than anything”. The Somali Foreign Minister’s response was, “Regardless of our objections to you, we will give you our vote”.(1)

Thus, Ethiopia led the Organization of African Unity and the African Union, which is an extension of the parent organization over decades, and thus it was able to invest that golden grant from its neighbor and political and diplomatic opponent.

Of course, it is not known what prompted Somalia, specifically its Foreign Minister, Abdullahi Issa, to accept the Ethiopian request and support Addis to win the headquarters of the Organization of African Unity, in light of the reality of a political and military conflict between the two countries, knowing that the Somali Foreign Minister represented a national figure and a prominent political leader. At the Somali Youth league, he led the struggle for the country's independence from foreign occupation.

Especially since the same timing was during a period that was witnessing a state of crisis in relations between the two countries, and in 1964 the first war broke out between the two countries.
Somalia was not expected to make that decision, and the nature of political logic imposed bias in choosing the state of Senegal instead of its opponent.

Later, Somalia suffered greatly from the presence of the headquarters of the African Regional Organization in Addis Ababa, and in light of the impact of this on many African countries aligning with the Ethiopian side in its conflict with Somalia, which gave its opponent great political and diplomatic power.

The result resulted in Mogadishu giving Addis Ababa a very important political card, which the latter used towards the Somalis themselves, which is a historical strategic mistake that was made.

This denunciation also includes Egypt, which in turn had no objection to choosing Ethiopia as the headquarters of the regional organization, as if it could hold the position given its Arab and African weight, and the possibility of it obtaining greater political and diplomatic mobility than the presence of the headquarters of the regional organization, in addition to the permanent presence of the Arabic league headquarters in Cairo.

Not to mention that many African countries had taken a strongly supportive position in favor of Tanzania's victory over Somali Foreign Minister Omar Arta Ghalib, Somalia's candidate for the presidency of the UN Security Council in 1975, while the Ethiopian position was supportive of Tanzania, and did not take into account the role played by Somalia. Somalia is decisive in favoring Ethiopia over Senegal.

It is worth noting that Somalia later took a lesson from the decision to grant Ethiopia that political and diplomatic advantage, when the IGAD organization was established in 1986, of which he was one of its founders, which contributed to Djibouti becoming the headquarters of the organization, which included A number of East African countries, and later Somalia and Egypt, suffered from Ethiopia's policies, which killed their political sovereignty and interests.

Khalid Hassan Yusuf

1- Interview with Dr. Faisal Abdi Roble, SSTV channel, interviewed by Noor Abdi, Nairobi, date of publication January 7, 2024

(Edited by بكرى ابوبكر on 01-19-2024, 11:55 AM)

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