Africa Special Report, Vol. 1, No. 2, p. 2

Trouble in the Ogaden

A thorny international problem is slowly coming to a head in easternmost Africa. Involved are Ethiopia, France, Britain, Italy, the United Nations, Kenya and the primarily nomadic inhabitants of the three Somaliland dependencies. Tensions in the area have led to bloodshed in the past, and experts fear additional trouble before present problems can be resolved.

Latest development is a statement by President Gronchi of Italy, telling delegates from Italian Somaliland in Rome that Italy wants to accelerate Somaliland’s progress toward self-government. Observers interpret this as meaning Italy may relinquish its United Nations trusteeship over Somaliland well before the 1960 deadline. (Administration of Somaliland — one of Africa’s poorest countries — has cost the Italians perhaps as much as $50 million since they took over from Britain in 1950).

It is widely felt that Somalia independence will intensify the demand of the country’s largest political group, the Somali Youth League, for a “Greater Somaliland”, which would unite under one flag Somali-speaking people spread over an area from the French and British Somalilands south to border areas within Kenya (shaded area on map).

Key area in the dispute, however, is Ethiopia’s “Ogaden”, a Somali-speaking stronghold which has already been the scene of some world-shaking troubles (clashes in the town of Wal-Wal in 1934 touched off the Italian-Ethiopian war). With encouragement from Cairo Radio, Somali people, in Somaliland and Ethiopia alike, seem interested in some kind of unification, while some experts feel Ethiopia would go to war rather than accept such a move.

Even the boundary between the two countries has never been fixed on the ground; Ethiopian and Italian representatives are trying to iron this out in the UN Trusteeship Council now.

Meanwhile, Sinclair is prospecting for oil in the Ogaden; if successful this will undoubtedly add to the complexities, and could draw the United States more closely into the dispute.