Somaliland - The Unknown Republic

Somaliland and its bid for international recognition


The revelries of 18th May 2008 as the Somalilanders rightly celebrated the seventeenth anniversary of their democratic republic fell upon deaf ears amongst the international community.

Somaliland is a small country located in the northern part of the Horn of Africa with Djibouti to its northwest, Ethiopia to the south and west and Puntland (another separatist part of old Somalia) to its east. The capital of Somalia is further south in Mogadishu.


After declaring its independence the country was levelled by the Mogadishu based dictator, Siyad Barre. Since then the Somalilanders have built themselves a country based upon the greatest ideals of democracy, with the zeal of people in search of personal safety, education, free speech, healthcare and food.

But Somaliland is running three-legged in a race where the other competitors run unimpeded.

International non-recognition ties Somaliland to Somalia and is thus preventing it from becoming a model for African democracy.

Somaliland is being asked to give up its democracy and stability and join with a war-torn country in a state of collapse. This entails Somaliland’s great potential for investment, its rich mineral, coal and oil reserves remaining unutilised. Somaliland’s ability to import and export goods is being seriously impeded as the insurance costs set by Lloyds of London is extremely high for any ship which uses the port of Berbera. The country’s merchants, whose main exports are camels, frankincense and myrrh see the situation as far from wise.

But as the long-time Somaliland supporter, Tony Worthington, ex- MP for Clydebank and Milngavie explained in his 2004 House of Commons speech on the matter of Somaliland’s independence,

Somalilanders are caught in a vicious Catch-22 position. They are being told, “Destroy your nation by joining the destroyer in the south, and we will recognize you. Stay outside, with stability and democracy, and we will ignore you.”

The ignorance on the part of governments is voluntary but for the average citizen of the international community it is mainly down to being ill informed. In his speech he went on to explain why it is imperative that action is taken now (now in this case being four years ago),

The longer the world ignores the achievements of Somaliland in creating stability and democratic institutions, the greater the risk that wilder elements will take over, and the longer Somaliland is left to fend for itself without resources for schools, for example, the more willing will radical elements be to step in.

With the recent spate of Somali pirating and kidnapping the case for action is ever pressing. In the face of such adversity the Somalilanders have a national pride that comes of seeing the horrific repercussions of political instability. They are quick to welcome strangers with open arms in order to show them what they have achieved. The reverence one is shown as a foreigner gives some indication of the Somaliland people’s collective desperation for international recognition.

One hurdle which Somaliland is successfully tackling, which is going some way to keeping Somalia in the political Dark Ages is the knowledge of ancestry peculiar to the region. From a young age Somalis / Somalilanders / Puntlanders are expected to know their paternal lineage for ten to twenty generations as writ. Many Somalilanders we met knew theirs for more than forty.

This puts all citizens in sub-sub-clan divisions with a complex system of allegiances. Of the five major clans, Isaaq is dominant in Somaliland. However, the government has included a section of its constitution to ensure that clan based discrimination which plagues Somalia is minimized. There is now a multi-party democracy with district councils contested by six parties. It seems that Somaliland is keeping a close eye on Somalia and learning from its mistakes.


A history of the bloody tip of Africa’s Horn
After the Greeks, Egyptians and the Ottomans the Colonialists came to the Horn of Africa and divided what was then Somalia along typically uncompromising lines.

1880’s: In the far north the French occupied French Somaliland for Djibouti’s capacity as a port.

The British attained a protectorate over northern Somaliland in 1886 in order to provide the garrison in Aden (Yemen) with meat.

The Italians were permitted to occupy Somalia with Mogadishu as its capital after their siding with the Allies in WWI.

Southern Somalia was incorporated into British Kenya.

Ethiopia took the western deserts.

1900: The ‘Mad Mullah’, Mohamed Abdalla Hassan began to sow the seeds of a struggle for a reunited Somalia with his failed attacks against the British.

1920’s: Britain got a firm grasp of the region after a series of ‘pacification campaigns’ which decisively formed the borders of what is now Somaliland.

1940’s: During World War II the Italians in Somalia attacked the British garrisoned in Somaliland which resulted in Britain taking Somalia from Italian rule and forming Greater Somaliland. During WWII 9,000 Somaliland troops from the Somaliland Scouts and Somaliland Camel Corps fought with the British against the Italians, holding back an army of 291,000 Italian and local troops.

1950’s: Britain began to prepare Somaliland for its independence, holding meetings between different clans in order to broker stability after their departure.

1960’s: On April 6th 1960 Somalilanders voted for independence from Britain and to unite with Italian Somalia. From the 2nd to the 7th of June Somaliland was independent before the formation of the Somalia Republic with Italian Somalia. The union was disastrous, the mainly Issaq Somalilanders were not represented fairly by the Somalia National League party of central government. In the face of further Italianisation the Somalilanders unsuccessfully attempted a coup in 1962. The centralised government system inherited from Italy and Britain was unsuccessful in dealing with de-centralised pastoral peoples without the Colonial resources and the situation became anarchic, returning Somalis to their pre-Colonial days.

1969: General Siyad Barre took control of the Republic of Somalia in a military coup. Barre strove for reunification of its five states immortalized by the five-pointed star of the Somali flag. The Soviet Union was happy to oblige Barre’s gung-ho intentions by supplying him with arms, he then further ingratiated himself with them by declaring the Republic of Somalia a Marxist state, thus heightening Soviet involvement.

"When I came to Mogadishu...[t]here was one road built by the Italians. If you try to force me to stand down, I will leave the city as I found it. I came to power with a gun; only the gun can make me go."

1977: As Ethiopia fought a war with Eritrea to its south Somalia seized the moment and regained its western lands in the Ogaden War. Unfortunately for Barre the Soviet Union changed allegiances, supporting the greater power of Mengistu, the Marxist leader of Ethiopia who deposed Emperor Haile Selassie in a military coup. As a result arms stopped flowing into Somalia and with the help of the Soviets and Cubans, Somalia was crushed back into the shape Ethiopia dictated.

The bottom of Barre’s internal support dropped out and internal power struggles began in earnest, leaving Somalia in a clan based chaos.

1980’s: The sour taste of communism, left after the Soviet Union’s flip-flop, was sweetened by the arms of American and Italian democracy, as both countries were keen to prop those with anti-red sentiments and to gain a foothold in the Horn of Africa with its strategic importance as a neighbour to the Middle East.

As the Somali Salvation Democratic Front formed Puntland, the Somali National Movement attempted to establish Somaliland on its 1960’s borders. During the chaos Barre began his vindictive campaign against the Somalilanders. During the air strikes on Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital, in which planes took off from the city’s airport one of Barre’s closest aides recalled Barre considering himself to be, ‘a Darod chief who had totally annihilated an enemy clan.’

1982: Students rioted in Hargeisa, in response to Barre’s policies under which systematic human rights abuses prevailed.

1988: The Somalia Civil War began and the mainly Darod clans of the Somalia region commenced a campaign of destruction against the mainly Isaaq Somaliland region. Barre’s preoccupation with the Somaliland region saw his opposition in Somalia grow in strength and non-humanitarian aid stopped flowing into the country.

1990: At the end of the year Barre fled Mogadishu in the face of a military attack from a rival clan member, Gen. Mohamed Farah Aideed, who placed Ali Mahdi Mohamed in power. This left Somalia without a foreseeable future of peace.

1991: Somaliland declared its independence and established an interim government made up of representatives of clans who elected a President, beginning on the road to what should logically be international recognition by putting in place the institutions required for democracy to prevail.

2003: Dahir Riyad Kahin is the first democratically elected President of Somaliland with a winning margin of only 0.008%. The votes are counted by students and the military leave their arms in the barracks for the day.

Somaliland as it stands today

The treasure of the three wise men – Somaliland as seen from the ground
As we travelled through Somaliland we were constantly asked, without malice, why had Britain, with such strong connections to Somaliland, forgotten them in their hour of need. Ethiopia has already stated that it was willing to be the second country to acknowledge Somaliland and with them, the African Union is likely to follow. The United Nations will be a harder nut to crack but with the support of various EU countries including the UK, already present if not written, all that is required is a bold step forward by a significant world player.

In 1960 Macmillan addressed the House of Commons as follows:

I should like to say, however, that it is Her Majesty's Government's hope that whatever may be the constitutional future of the Protectorate, the friendship which has been built up between its people and those of the United Kingdom for so many years will continue and indeed flourish.

It is easy to understand why the Somalilanders feel betrayed.

During Barre’s campaign 200,000 Somalis were brought to the UK, many settling in London and Wales. The small Somaliland government, as we were informed by the Minister for Trade and Industry (who used to work for Bristol City Council) has seven members who are British citizens. He also told us of the country’s energy crisis. The price currently stands at $1/kwh – the highest charge in the world. He then suggested we meet with ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency – an NGO) to find out more on the subject of how they were going to run the country on renewable energy alone.

With so little investment Somaliland’s current main source of income is its loyal Diaspora of over a million, who are evidently determined to rebuild the country and are savvy enough to be wary of making the same mistakes as many other African countries.

The Parliament and President’s Palace, as they were proudly described to us by Hargeisan’s, were very humble. Many wanted it to stay that way, fearful of the prospect of Machiavellian machinations that will come with the might of the World Bank. They are very clued up.

The Somalilanders are rightly proud of their democracy - during the election period the police and army go to work unarmed and the votes are counted by students.

Somalilander’s generally have a murky view of the UN. The officer responsible for Somaliland is stationed in Nairobi. It seems that the UN is concerned about the threat of ‘Balkanisation’ of the Horn of Africa. It is perceived that an independent Somaliland will jeopardize the potential for peace in the region as this peace is envisaged as a united Somalia, drawn up along the pre-Colonial borders. This view does not appear to have evolved as the situation has, and now devolution seems the only plausible solution.

Somaliland remains a graveyard for international dabbling. We were shown the NASA landing strip by the beach, the tennis courts of the British Protectorate’s summer retreat in the cool of the mountains, the North Korean crates in the abandoned cement factory in the desert, the Ottoman hilltop fort, the shell of one of Barre’s Soviet tanks outside the village of Hamas, the Bulgarian medical equipment in Sheik’s decimated hospital. All acted as monuments to international involvement which have passed into a distant memory.

In Berbera we met with the Community Concern Group, a local NGO. Solomon, the director of the port and Dictor Jama (he was a doctor but this was how he was introduced), a one man Somaliland restoration whirlwind compered the evening. We were told about the various projects they had undertaken and were undertaking, building schools, planting trees and so on. They were keen to know our view on Somaliland’s bid for international recognition. It was announced that we were from then on partners of the CCG and plans were made for our appearance on national television the following evening to state as much and air our opinions on Somaliland’s independence.

A meeting was scheduled in a plush hotel lobby where we were met by two effervescent Kenyans from the ADRA whom we were put in touch with by the Minister of Trade and Industry. During the meeting it became clear that ADRA was one of the few NGO’s working in Somaliland. A theme that ran throughout was of the possibility of making a great country. It is practically being built from scratch and there is the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of other countries - skip out the less savoury stages of development and become a beacon for hope.

Recognition
There is a widespread fear that Somaliland’s current opposition to fundamentalism may begin to lose its strength if the international community continues to turn its back on them.

The international think tank Senlis compiled a report in April of this year on the failures of America’s ‘War on Terror’

Those bombings and sponsorship of a proxy Christian army – Ethiopia –to fight in Mogadishu have provided militant Islamists with abundant propaganda material

An embattled population found the resolve to reconstruct itself, establishing functioning organs of government without little upheaval – a rarity in post-conflict reconstruction. Its drive to create multi-party democracy upon a backdrop of relative peace and security has been impressive, if not without flaw.

Of all the states in the Horn of Africa it is the self-declared yet internationally unrecognised aspirant state of Somaliland that offers President Bush with his most viable opportunity to claim an Africa success story.

A 2006 report compiled by the international NGO, concerned with compiling independent reports on politically unstable and humanitarian situation, Crisis Group, called for the urgent action in the Somaliland debate, pointing out that,

A multi-party political system and successive competitive elections have established Somaliland as a rarity in the Horn of Africa and the Muslim world. However, the Somalia Transitional Federal Government continues strongly to oppose Somaliland independence.

Despite fears that recognition would lead to the fragmentation of Somalia or other AU member states, an AU fact-finding mission in 2005 concluded the situation was sufficiently “unique and self-justified in African political history” that “the case should not be linked to the notion of ‘opening a pandora’s box’”. It recommended that the AU “should find a special method of dealing with this outstanding case” at the earliest possible date. On 16 May 2006, Rayale met with the AU Commission Chairperson, Alpha Oumar Konare, to discuss Somaliland’s application for membership.

All evidence leans towards a need to reward Somaliland and not to consider it merely as part of a potentially fractious Africa movement of ‘Balkanisation’.

In March of 2006 a speaker of the Somaliland parliament was invited to speak before the National Assembly for Wales and rightly or wrongly took is as recognition of his country. It is a baby step but it is in the right direction.

Travel log 11 – Somaliland – Hargeisa, Berbera, Sheekh, Las Geel and Harar (Ethiopia)

The following is a description of our travels in Somaliland. During our time in the country we became very interested in the country’s history and its ongoing bid for international recognition. The article above which follows this travel log contains the hard facts, and is not as easy a read but please give it a go

19/4/2008 - 20/4/2008
Addis Ababa to Jijiga
The road to Somaliland
We headed east from Addis taking an overnight minibus to Harar. Squashed into the minibus the driver sped through the night stopping only occasionally in small villages where trucks lined the roadside making their way to or from the ports in Djibouti or Somaliland. The driver would stock up on food or ch’at, the mild amphetamines which seemed to do a good job of keeping him awake and psyched up for the treacherous drive. Arriving at Harar at first light we jumped straight on the next bus to take us closer to the Somaliland border, in the town the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office ‘advise against all travel to’, the relatively respectable Jijiga.

21/4/2008
Jijiga to Hargeisa
Walking across the dirt track border
After overnighting in Jijiga we were glad to be on the bus to Wajaale. It wasn’t a case of the place feeling unsafe, more of it feeling like a town at the end of the Earth. Entering Somaliland was blissfully simple and after stamping our passport the official exclaimed, “Welcome British Protectorate!”

As we waited for the sixth passenger to get into the car that would take us from the border town to Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, a middle-aged man popped his head through the window to welcome us to a peaceful Somaliland where we could be assured of our safety, and to enquire as to how Ealing was since his repatriation. Self-conscious patriotism was a repeating theme.

A passenger in the car told us how he, as a Somalilander, differed from a Somali. If he saw us in trouble on the street he would be willing to die for us in order to protect our safety as we represented a step towards international recognition. If a Somali saw us in trouble they would join in. On a cramped two hour drive it was difficult to know how to handle this kind of hyperbole with anything other than ‘thanks’.

After two hours and numerous passport checks we arrived in Hargeisa driving past the presidential home and the parliamentary building. To say they were not elaborate would be an understatement but for a fledgling African nation it was a refreshingly humble sight to see.

22/4/2008
Hargeisa
The capital of an unrecognised country
Wandering round Hargeisa brought into relief quite how other-worldly the place is. Moneychangers lined the streets, sitting behind walls of money. One British Pound is equivalent to 11,800 Somaliland Shillings and as the largest note they have is 500 Shillings, changing $100 gave us both very satisfying bagfuls of money. What was notable though was that there was no fear of anyone stealing from us, there was something in the air. When the call to prayer came over the loud speakers these same money changers and those squatting on the street side selling gold all strolled up to the mosque, leaving their livelihoods unattended on the street. Although the country does operate under sharia law, which can account for some degree of the population’s propensity to abide the law, they are relatively progressive, allowing women many of the same roles as men. Many of the women we met, like the headmistress of the Berbera Maritime University wore a headscarf but were far from submissive. She drove us round in her jeep and it was hard to get a word in edgeways.


At one end of the ‘high street’ is the Somalilanders war monument: a Soviet MIG shot down during the war for independence against the Mogadishu based Siyad Barre. Its concrete base was adorned with bright coloured murals depicting the horrors that were committed against the Somalilanders and their more recent successes. This was Hargeisa’s closest approximation to a conventional tourist attraction.

23/4/2008
Hargeisa - Berbera
A trip to the seaside with an armed guard
To travel outside Hargeisa the government stipulates that you must take a driver and armed guard. Our experiences made it seem an over-zealous policy, but Somaliland is so desperate for international recognition that if those few tourists who do visit them come a cropper, this will scupper their chances as it will be seen as an indication of their failure to control the security situation. On the other hand our guard, Mr. Mohammed was nice enough and looked very professional in his full military outfit. The only gripe we had with him was that whenever our driver left the car (normally to pour water on the engine) he turned our tape off and switched the stereo onto Somaliland radio. We were not in a position to argue with him even though the shouty din over atonal stringed instruments was fairly irritating.

Our driver / guide / presidential hopeful Abdullah showed us around his country, pointing out the success of democracy as a guide in North Korea might with Communism.

It was possible to put the independence conflict out of mind because the destruction was generally out of sight: the city had been levelled and everything was new. As we left the city we could see that progress had been slower. On the road to Berbera we passed crumbling buildings, the gutted remains of Soviet tanks and a group of women who had been raped and had had their eyes gouged out with bayonets. But it was as if there had been a forest fire and now life could start again, new construction springing up all around, full of hope.


We went to Berbera’s best restaurant, in the heart of its bullet-riddled Colonial ruins and ate fish caught a few hours previously, drank fresh tamarind juice and discussed the future of Somaliland with a motley crew of businessmen and teenagers.

Abdullah took us to a pristine beach on the sapphire waters of the Red Sea where we met a group of boys who had caught a fish with their bare hands and an elder who had dyed his extensive beard bright orange with henna, as is the custom with Somalis.


On the beach, framed by the mountains in which he had fought, sat our guard in full military uniform, keeping an eye on our bag full of money.

On the drive back to our hotel Abdullah snapped from his cheery mood and took us to a vast graveyard with bits of wood, metal and rock for headstones. We stopped by a lorry axle protruding from the sand and he told us how his brother had been killed in front of him. While trying to stop Barre’s soldiers from burning the family car his brother had had his throat cut. He laughed about it with a glazed look on his face as if it were too absurd to have happened.

That evening we chewed ch’at, a green leaf containing a mild amphetamine, favoured in the region as a legal social drug and Abdullah announced that that evening there was a meeting scheduled for us with the Community Concerned Group (CCG) who would tell us about all the good work they were doing.


24/4/2008
Berbera
Ghostly city by the sea


Dictor Jama, the one man Somaliland restoration project, from CCG decided to give us a guided tour of Berbera which was slightly bizarre at points and in around 40oC and extremely high humidity quite testing. We first toured the port, the port director, before being taken to meet with the governor of the region and then touring the abandoned cement plant, then on to see the salt factory (which turned out to be a small concreted area they put sea water into and let it evaporate) and then along to Berbera lighthouse. We were shown an area of land which had been bought by Dictor Jama and Abdullah out near the old iron lighthouse for a hotel they were planning. They offered us part of their beach so we could build our own houses on it. Stood on an endless, empty beach watching the sun set over the calm sea it seemed a tempting offer. But there were still ghosts around. The area of scrub between us and the NASA landing strip now used as Berbera’s airport in which dark-eyed camels looked out over the sea was the same stretch Dictor Jama and Abdullah had sprinted across as they fought together against Siyad Barre’s troops and people presumably bled into the sand.


In the evening we were set in front of the national press. It soon became clear that the purpose of the broadcasts (three channels, including on satellite and the national newspaper) were to be political. We were asked how the Somaliland we saw differed from the one we had envisaged. At the end of the broadcast the reporter from Somaliland Times asked us if we could send him pills for his stomach ulcer when we returned to England.

25/4/2008
Hargeisa – Sheekh – Las Geel – Hargeisa
Into the mountains and caves
We visited the mountain top town of Sheekh, the summer retreat for the British Governor when the stifling heat of Berbera, down on the coast became too much. The house was in ruins but the tennis courts and swimming pool could still be made out and locals had left the baths and window frames, for which they had no use. This was in stark contrast to the botched together nomadic huts which now surrounded it. We continued into Sheekh to see the hospital which had all but been destroyed in the war. It still smelt like a hospital and much of the Bulgarian medical equipment was still in place but the walls were covered in graffiti and the only sound we could hear was of the children playing football outside and the birds flying from ward to ward.


We then went back through Berbera on our way to Hargeisa, as we cruised through the desert in the left hand drive car on the right side of the road (a typically absurd Colonial reminder) Abdullah pointed out the mountains which he had hidden amongst and the straights across which he had run with Mr. Mohammed, our guard, when they fought together. Mr. Mohammed remained stony faced even in the face of the Libyan trance reggae tape we put on which Abdullah was very taken by.

On the last leg of the trip back to Hargeisa we were taken to the most spectacular site in Somaliland, the Neolithic cave paintings of Las Geel, which are regarded widely as some of the best if not the best rock art in Africa. The caves are located in a beautiful area of the country high up on a hillside looking over the vast expanse of scrubland and desert where a river once ran. It is thought that the paintings were produced 4000 years ago and yet they are still in stunning condition. The subject matter mainly revolves around images of different types of cows but also of men, dogs, giraffes and other animals. There is clearly a hugely complex symbolic subtext to the works which archaeologists are still trying to piece together. The area is in fact still being catalogued as it was only discovered by a French team in 2002. Upon seeing Las Geel we had to agree that the only reason it is not a World Heritage site is because it is in Somaliland.


26/4/2008
Hargeisa
Meetings with the ministers
On returning to Hargeisa we met with the Minister of Trade and Industry to discuss the country’s potential and his interest in promoting clean development. It was strange chatting to a man who used to work for Bristol City Council and was so proud to be a British Citizen, as were seven other members of the cabinet. They came with the tens of thousands of Somalilanders brought to Britain during the war who are now flooding back to rebuild their country.

Later we also met ADRA the only NGO doing serious work in Somaliland and discussed the huge potential in the country. They also added to the bizarre picture we were building up of the country by telling us it is the most hooked up (in terms of electrical coverage per head) country in the whole of Africa.

27/4/2008
Hargeisa – Harer (Ethiopia)
Turning down the Vice -President
In the morning we were supposed to meet with the Vice President of Somaliland, but the meeting was rearranged for the afternoon, and unfortunately we had to leave, meaning that we missed out on the opportunity. We had a long day of travelling back into Ethiopia, all the way to Harer.

28/4/2008 – 29/4/2008
City circled by hyenas
Harer
We wandered round the high, narrow streets of the old windy city of Harar, escorted by a local guide without whom we were guaranteed to get lost in the labyrinthine mess of markets, houses, churches and shrines. Without him we would never have found our way past the unassuming gates which led to Rimbault’s old house, nor would we have thought anything of the run down wooden building in which Haile Selassie was born.


During the evening we went to witness the surreal tradition of hyena feeding. It is thought, or more likely, was thought, that if the hyenas were not fed the crops would fail. There is undoubtedly an inverted logic to the feeding of the hyenas and the community’s general prosperity as the well-fed beasts were less likely to kill livestock. Now the affair is far more touristy. There is warm up act of a man who calls to the hyenas down in the valley with a strange moan. Then, like a circus performer a man puts bits of meat on sticks to give to the tourists to feed to the stinking animals. Unfortunately we came the day after Ethiopians celebrate Easter and their vegetarian fasting ends. The hyenas were clearly pogged after the previous days off-cuts so their performance lacked its normal verve. Still, it was quite impressive and in terms of a touristy show there was only one other tourist there. The next morning we returned to Addis by minibus and were lucky not to have ended up in the hyena man’s basket after we collided with a rock in the road. The conductor handed out some ch’at and repaired whatever had broken with a mix of black paint and superglue.

Travel Log 10 – Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa
29/3/2008 – 18/4/2008 and 30/4/2008 – 21/5/2008
The ageless mango

Having been told by a businessman on the bus that ‘Addis Ababa’ meant ‘new flower’ made the approach to the city one of imaginings. Would it be fresh and vibrant? Would it be a delicate and beautiful place?

Historically it does not live up its name. ‘New’ is somewhat a misnomer as it is widely considered to be slap bang in the centre of the seat of human kind, from where, 100,000 years ago the human race spread out across the globe. In more recent times, it was established by Emperor Menelik II in order to appease Taytu, his wife, who was fond of the natural mineral baths the city still provides. In the present it does live up to its name, as its people are new. Everyone in the city seems to have either consigned themselves to an eternal immovability or is in a state of manic movement, waving their arms about and strutting around. Men in oversized sunglasses and designer stubble mix with the robed crowds praying at the old churches. Women in traditional dress eat pastries to the sound of 50 Cent and prostitutes trussed in Lycra swaddling rub shoulders with priests wearing strange, cylindrical hats. There is not necessarily a sense of Addis, the place being ‘new’, more that it inhabits a time all of its own. It is more the case that its people are ‘new’, but they have come from all different times.

‘Flower’ suggested something effeminate, and it was impossible to deny that the city had a disproportionate number of knee-tremble-inducing women. However, the dirty, raucous nature of the place was symbolically closer to a fruit like the mango: exuberant, but sordid.


‘Ageless Mango’ as it should be known was dominated by the vast Presidential and Prime Ministerial palaces, grand Coptic churches, high rise shopping centres (but never with more than ten storeys), the brightly lit Ethiopian Electric building, wooden scaffolding reaching up into nothingness and decadent the British Embassy.

When the Djiboutian Embassy asked for a letter of recommendation from our embassy in order for them to begin processing our visa application it did not come as a big surprise, the same was required by the Sudanese in Cairo. The shock came when we passed through the imposing gates of the vast British Embassy with its polo field, swimming pool, golf course and pet leopards. Presumably in order to fund such a jolly good time we were asked to pay $120 for the one page printout which cost around $30 in Cairo. Toby had previously been in the Post Office to collect his birthday cake but the security guard was unwilling to allow it entry into the Embassy compound. Presumably as it was a heavy fruitcake it posed a risk as a weapon.

It sounded like an echo of the not-so-distant past. Haile Selassie would feed his lions before breakfast every morning. The image we had built of the mythical man was brought crashing back to reality when we visited his palace, now part of the city’s university (where there are no tuition fees). We stood uncomfortably in his private chambers looking down at his sad little bed. There was a poignant reminder of his usurpment by the Communist Derg on the 12th September 1974 in the form of a bullet hole in his bedside mirror. His private bathroom did not have gold taps, it was a utilitarian affair of plain mosaic not too dissimilar from toilets down the road in Kaldi’s café.

Kaldi’s is Starbucks with a more inventive menu and better coffee. There are the same chalkboards, uniforms, logo and unpleasant prices. An enterprising gentleman suggested Starbucks open a chain in the home of coffee. They refused after they lost a court battle with the Ethiopian government with regards to the patenting of an Ethiopian coffee bean. Ethiopian coffee producers thought it unfair and won the case. Kaldi’s was built in its stead and appears to be hugely popular.

We occasionally watched the ice cream melt in the counter fridges during one of the city’s many power cuts. After reading the local press it came to light that the late Mahar rains were the root of the problem. Ethiopia gets its electricity from hydropower and with the imminent completion of expansion projects intends to begin exporting power to its neighbours. Without the rain the system did not work so power was being rationed. What was not in the Ethiopian press was the more pressing effect of the drought: the impending humanitarian disaster in Oromiya and Somali regions where 4 million people are at risk of death. A week after the US and UK pledged $90m in relief, the Ethiopian government announced that it will be increasing its military budget eightfold to $400m.

Some of the Ethiopian press was surprisingly free (most notably, The Reporter) which described how the opposition had ducked out of the local elections which were taking place while we were in the city. They claimed the voters and politicians were being pushed, violently. While we were in the city three people were killed by a bomb blast at a petrol station. There were suggestions that it was the work of Ogaden National Liberation Front (the underdeveloped south of the country). What was bizarre about the ONLF was the government’s claims that they were backed by the Qatar government. No indication was given as to Qatar’s interest in the debacle, but it entailed the Qatar based Aljazeera website being consigned to the same fate as all blogs in the country – it was barred. This made writing this blog challenging.

Addis seemed to attract fascinating eccentrics from all over the globe, all with weird of wonderful tales. The Austrian researching the sticks Ethiopians use as toothbrushes. The French graffiti artist, fluent in Amharic and the world’s only white azmari (traditional Ethiopian minstrel who sings freestyle about the audience members and current affairs). The group driving three Morris Minors from South Africa to London on the way to the 60th anniversary celebrations. The Dutch woman trained in hostage negotiation helping street children. The French street performers preparing for a fire show. The three Brits setting up a perma-culture ecolodge in the south of the country. The alcoholic Saudi Arabian who loved America at around four in the afternoon but generally hated them by about ten in the evening. Two of the three Russian cyclists we first met on the boat from Egypt to Sudan who were hating Ethiopia, having had rocks hurled at them as they passed through villages. The Japanese farmer who wanted to introduce bamboo to the Ethiopians. The British journalist living in Lebanon researching tobacco and ch’at. The part time DJ from Dalston searching for source material. The Frenchman who had single-handedly rediscovered Ethiopian jazz of the 60’s and 70’s (as can be heard in Jim Jarmusch’s film Broken Flowers). He was in the process of organising a music festival steeped in Romanticism. One of the performers had not been in Ethiopia for fifteen years after he sought political asylum in America. He was found working as a petrol pump attendant and had agreed to return for a one off performance.

Politics and music were hot topics in the ch’at and coffee houses during our stay as the country’s number one performer had been locked up just before the election. Apparently this is a repeated theme, the governments of Ethiopia have had some bad experiences with their more feisty song writers. Teddy Afro was in court on the charge of a hit and run murder and everyone had an opinion on the matter, far beyond the information found in the papers and very deep into their imaginations. It was a welcome break from talking about Arsenal, Man United and Chelsea (and in the cases of some wild cards, Liverpool).

Knowing where to go out in Addis was a tricky business. We had to base it upon the advice of those who had tried and tested before us. On Toby’s birthday the decision was made that FreeZone would do for dinner, Harlem Jazz for some music, then wing it from there. FreeZone turned out to be the place to be, a courtyard of people posing, posturing and doing their best to catch the attention of the waiters (in Ethiopia waiters are very possessive over their tables, if you catch the eye of the wrong one you normally get a blank stare). Everyone was having fun and it was a relaxed place to be but everyone was showing off a little too much. Harlem Jazz proved to be the place for some genuine reggae. Many of the ‘twice as nice!’ band members came from Shashamane – the spiritual home of the Rastafarians and sang of Selassie, repatriation, Jah and Bob over lolloping and scatty rhythms that made all of the white people dance like idiots. We made the schoolboy error of asking a twelve year old taxi driver where we should go next. We were taken to the notorious Memo Club where women outnumber the men 4-1 and the ugly ones are turned away at the door. The flaw in this seemingly perfect club was that they were all prostitutes. Fat, bald, sweaty Chinese businessmen lounged on sofas draped with women while UN types ground against women in mini-skirts. However, the saviour of the dance floor came in the shape of an Indian man wearing a sweat band and sporting one hell of moustache. He pointed to the DJ to signal that now was the time for his song (the one where bhangra music is played over the top of the Night Rider bass line). He picked a point when the dance floor was empty. He circled round pointing to people in the crowd then erupted into a flailing masterpiece. It turned out to be good fun, once we had established with the women that their services were not required they were very cordial and referred to themselves as our sisters and we all had a good dance. We never quite got the hang of the Ethiopian shoulder dancing (which randomly interspersed the 50 Cent and Timberland tracks) but we gave it a bloody good go.

Addis was not a place of attractions. The Derg Monument near the Post Office was an imposing monument to Communism and intriguing in its incongruity. The Millennium Square celebrated the Ethiopian Millennium with a giant metal dove and the flags of most of the countries of the world. Then there was Selassie’s palace and the ethnographic museum, which did have some good photos of British soldiers who were stationed there, as was Toby’s Great-grandfather, and the tribal habits of the Ethiopians of the south. Then there was the church housing the body of Haile Selassie and his wife (that is if you are to believe what the ‘bomboklat’ minister tells you – Rastafarians believe him to be alive but in hiding) with its mural above the altar depicting Selassie’s moment of transition from mere mortal to super hero. It was at his speech to NATO that his words became prophetic, he foresaw and warned them of WWII but no one was listening! The truth of the matter was that although these sights were distracting, Addis was far more about drinking amazing coffee and reasonable beer and chewing the cud with anyone and everyone. This sensibility seemed to rub off on those people passing through and left the city crackling with chatter.


What was treacherous about Addis’ streets was the moral threat rather than a physical one, as culturally Ethiopians did not seem inclined towards crime. We were told how children come to the city looking for easy cash. If they are not female or not pretty enough to be a prostitute they are taken under the wing of a Fagin character who in many cases purposefully disfigures them, in order to improve their earnings. From a roof top café one could watch a mother sending her toddlers out to targeted individuals. We saw a man lying on the street with what looked at first glance, like a pink sweet stuck to his belly, hence the flies. It seemed like a cruel trick to play on someone so destitute. On closer, and completely innocent inspection it turned out to be the membrane of some internal organ which had ruptured through the skin. The Addisians reaction to these people was one of resolute acceptance. We watched as two blind people collided in front of a bus queue. They were locked in an awkward embrace, maintaining there respective sales pitches – the man calling upon the name of Selassie and tapping his white stick, his face almost entirely burnt away and his white eyes bulbous. Her calling upon Jesus and shaking a handful of change up and down rhythmically. People from the bus stop quickly and quietly righted them.

Addis’ merkato is dubiously given the title of Africa biggest market. It covers a huge area but what is a shop and what is a market stall is hard to tell, and where it starts and ends it also unclear. What is clear is that it is a dirty, noise life-filled headache. Everyone was bustling to get to their bargain and out again. Inside one shop / stall we bought honey. It was a high ceilinged and dark hall filled with musty smells. Huge sacks of butter, honey and dried fish were piled high. The shopkeeper scooped handfuls of honey into a plastic bag, gently conducting the flies around him. The place was alive with bargain hunting women preparing for the end of the Easter fasting. As Easter approached the goods became in higher demand and the prices rose and this was apparently the best time to buy.

We were lucky enough to be in the city during the annual film festival. The Africa Spelling Book whetted our appetites for Kenya as it was a film made by an NGO which had given cameras to Nairobian street children and told them to produce short films about what Africa meant to them, based upon the letters of the alphabet. The driving, upbeat feel to the films set in slums were thought-provoking. It was easy to forget that although these places may be a mess, they are also people’s homes, in which they go through some the very same sagas as people in environs more familiar to us.


During the night the city felt very safe. When we visited the Habasha Restaurant for a treat we dined with the Kenyan diplomats and were treated to the most spectacular shoulder dancing we had seen to date. The dancers moved their necks and shoulders independently and into impossible contortions, flicking their heads around like ping-pong balls. Members of the audience (generally older Ethiopian businessmen) would periodically go up and give it a go, then stuff cash into the pockets of the performers. Miraculously nobody suffered from whiplash.

Another dance performance was on a whole new scale of weirdness. It was a variety act at Concord Club which involved a dance narrative performed by a man and woman. The man is a drunk, saved by the power of love. The climax of the show is the man playing the woman as a variety of musical instruments. The most eye popping being the piano. He laid her legs in the splits position across his lap and pressed her thighs and feet as if they were keys. When a bum note played on the musical accompaniment he went straight for the groin. We later saw the same performance re-enacted on the TV. They are clearly quite a sensation.

Another night’s entertainment was advertised to us as ‘traditional’ which turned out to be quite a stretch of the imagination. It was a fashion show watched by Addis’ great and good, with a camera crew there ready to film our awkward grins. Between designers the entertainment included a stand-up comedian who we suspect may well have been using us, as the only two white audience members, as source material. There were also three far from coy mistresses in Lycra performing a very ‘special’ dance routine. This all took place on top of one of the city’s tallest towers in the modesty titled Cloud 9 Café...

It was all a lot of off-kilter fun.

Travel Log 9– Northern Ethiopia, Sheidi, Gonder, Debark, Simien Mountains, Bahir Dar and Lalibella

Sheidi
3/3/08
The taste of success was warm, flat and satisfying. We drank beer while we waited for our visas to be checked on the border between Sudan and Ethiopia. The passport office was surrounded by a complex of wooden shacks and alleyways.

At the bus station the reservation we saw on the faces of Sudanese was put into stark contrast as we were harangued by children hell bent on acting as our porters. On the bus it was a bawdy affair with people laughing raucously and the women wearing the antipathy of burkahs making none too subtle eyes. We were definitely a commodity. A woman on the bus had the tattooed face of an Orthodox Ethiopian Christian – a cross where a bhindi would go and cog-like marking encircling her neck.

The bus took us from the border town of Metama to Shihedi where we would overnight before getting the bus further to Gonder the next morning. It was made up of shacks playing Ethiopian pop (which was heavily keyboard based with a strange 2/2 rhythm which sounded like a strange impersonation of the 80’s), table football and bar after bar after bar.

Walking along the dirt high street dodging the horse drawn carts we were followed by a group of young boys who claimed to be our guides to the town. As we drank coffee they scuffled outside over ownership of us.

In our hotel a woman from the bus recognized us and invited us into her room. Inside were her adopted son and younger sister. We chewed ch’at (see later) with her – a mild amphetamine popular in the Arab world and across much of east Africa. The leaves were stuffed into the mouth and chewed slowly, allowing the acrid juices to trickle down the throat, accompanied by cola and peanuts. After the dehydration of the bus journey (on which the man in front insisted on closing the window, and remained infuriatingly un-sweaty for the journey as we felt our skin crack under the pressure) the effect of the ch’at was hard to distinguish but there was a general mood of chatty giddiness. There is of course a strong possibility that the presence of an unveiled, powerful woman who was willing to put us in our place on a variety of subjects we were completely unable to comprehend may have been the vital ingredient in the heady mix. Her adopted son who she called Baggio (after the Italian footballer) and who had the same eccentric haircut as him insisted on calling Toby ‘Papa’.

We finally managed to establish that the bus to Gonder, seven hours south, was going to be leaving at 5.00am. The confusion arose from the fact that in Ethiopia the day begins when the sun comes up at 6.00am and this is counted as 12.00, the time is therefore always six hours outside what it should be.


Gondar
04/03/08 – 09/03/08
Emmanuel got sap from a tree in his eye when he was a tot and was left with a blind, shiny, milk coloured iris.

Kibrit came from Bahir Dar to make his fortune as a traditional musician, playing animal skin drums and singing as an azmari (freestyle comedy singer approaching politics and often those in the room) and playing a masenqo (one stringed bowed instrument) as part of tejbeit (traditional Ethiopian music, still very popular with locals).

John was an orphan who fell in love with a rich girl.

Rich had dreams of going to university with his girlfriend and getting a good job.

Wonderful was having trouble paying for his night school classes in tourism in order for him to get a pass which would legally allow him to trail us without the threat of a beating from the police.

Hanging round with these lads, learning their ‘stories’ was a mainstay of our time in fairy tale Gondar. After spending four days with this motley crew of hustlers, chancers and lay abouts we had a chance to better understand their respective predicaments although we would not claim to know the truth of them. These street urchins had not been dealt the harshest hands in the town, they just had the language skills to communicate them most successfully.



After buying Emmanuel a second hand dictionary, giving Kibrit an old pair of Toby’s trousers, Wonderful a copy of ‘Waiting for Godot’ and John an Arabic to English dictionary the money hassle abated. They had nothing better to do than try and pick up some English from us so followed us about. Understandably they were also keen to speak the international language without the handicap of an American accent. Through their local knowledge and understanding we were able to see and understand many sides of life in Gondar that would otherwise have passed us by.

Nestled in high mountains, Gondar was the ancient capital of Ethiopia and seat of the powerful Abyssinian Empire, the castle of which still stood at the top of the town. The town and surrounding area’s main industry is tourism as well as agriculture and the Dashen (beer) and huge Pepsi plants. The other main industry of the town, often disturbingly connected to tourism, is prostitution.

The street urchins took us to a series of nightclubs where the women’s vocabulary was limited to a few phrases that would make Jim Davidson blush. If we were to make eye contact with one a catfight would ensue. The street urchins pointed out an Israeli man in one of the clubs, who had just finished national service. He came out of a bedroom at the back of the club near the stinking toilet with a blank-faced girl. They explained that their friend had made 70Birr ($7) commission from the transaction and they were very pleased for him. They seemed genuinely surprised that we were not interested in the same. We had to be adamant about it because the initial sensation of coming from two months of sharia law to a room of women gyrating their backsides independently of the rest of their bodies was pretty overpowering.

We stayed in the faded glory of the Ethiopia Hotel in the heart of the town. The café below was popular with Gondar’s dapper old timers who greeted each other with a theatrical series of embraces such as handshakes cupped at the forearm representing a transference of power / strength in some kind of business transaction. They would then sit down to the complex flavours of the freshly ground coffee and pat each other on the knee with the kind of tenderness that would get them funny looks in England. However, here it is the norm: Banksy’s artwork would be stripped of its shock value in Ethiopia as policemen and soldiers genuinely do hold hands on the street.

From the vaulted ceiling hung replacement chandeliers but the stained glass above the grand double doors was original, as was the Italian coffee machine and the booth from which the dour old owner watched over proceedings, slowly counting out money with arthritic fingers for the beautiful waitresses to hand out. One slow turn of his bald head in its starched collar housing would send street children who came in to sell packs of tissues and tooth brush sticks clattering out of the door. As was the case with the town’s many crazies who, no matter how far gone they were, still seemed to know not to try his patience. The packets of tissues business seemed to be booming. It was quite a status symbol for someone in a café or a bar to be able to mop their brow in such a disposable fashion. Also, none of the toilets had toilet paper. From the perspective of the street children, they could buy a pack of twelve from the shop, which worked out as 65cents a packet, then sell them on a 1Birr each.

In comparison to most of the places we had travelled through (Khartoum included) it was better paved, cleaned and even pedestrianised. The path leading up to Gondar’s castle was clear for a good stream of tourists. This brought pastoral people from the surrounding areas who believed the streets to be paved with dollars. Despite the almost European feel of the central town there was still a large volume of donkey and sheep traffic to temper its aspirations. The huge numbers of Ogre buzzards that patrolled the sky over the town at all hours was an impressive sight giving it the true feel of a medieval mountain castle town.



We got to know quite a few of the town’s wide boys in their shady alleys, by putting the word out that we were after a second hand tent. After many wild promises and let downs we came across a reasonable and non-Chinese manufactured tent that was suitable enough to use for the remainder of our trip.

Most of the time we ate injera – a large, slightly sour pancake made from tef (a native grain) which was topped with a variety of different dishes. Parts of the pancakes were ripped off by all those round the table at the time and used to pick up the various dishes. We had heard that Ethiopians were not willing to eat alone and this seemed to be true, everyone seemed happy to share. Because of the Orthodoxy’s strict adherence to a fifty five day fast for Lent there was little meat available but the wide variety of vegetable dishes were delicious. It was a welcome break from the fu’ul of Sudan.

On our last day the street urchins invited us to an Arabia –something like an opium den but designed for the consumption of t’chat. A small series of rooms containing squat tables, beds and cushions divided by curtains. As we watched a rural woman with tattooed face performed the coffee ceremony for us, making the surrounding bizarre environment drift away. She laid grass from the river bed on the ground and arranged a series of strange wood and mud vessels and implements. She roasted the coffee beans and as they smoked wafted the scent about the room then ground them with a clumsy wooden mortar and pestle. The pot from which she poured was lifted high in an act of high drama and accuracy, like a knife thrower, aerating it and producing the mandatory three cups each of the best coffee either of us had ever tasted. Our taste buds were thankful for the relief from the acrid t’chat. After a few hours the t’chat and coffee had taken effect and there was no chance that we would be able to sleep so we went out for a few final beers with the street urchins. We got back to our hotel at five in the morning and left on the bus for Debark at six.


Debark
10/03/08
Without sleep and with a heavy box of food for a planned ten day trek through the Simien Mountains to the summit of Ras Dejen (the highest mountain in Ethiopia) we completed the three hour endurance bus ride from Gondar to Debark. We made our way to the Simien Mountains National Park office to organise our hike. Gurning with concentration, straining to comprehend the prices quoted to us, using all our mental will power we arranged our English speaking guide, compulsory armed scout, two mules and a mule man (which mysteriously became two mule men), cooking equipment and sleeping bag hire and park entrance fee. The first impression we made on Deejain, can’t have been great as we were dazed and confused, falling asleep into our lunches. We slept early to wake early the next day and begin the trek.


Simien Mountains
11/03/08 – 18/03/08
We rose before the sun, the air thick with thyme and stars following the same mountain pass as the priests and pastoralists in medieval dress, across a sheer meadowland of frozen streams and bleeding hearts baboons to Ras Dejen – Ethiopia’s highest peak at around 4550m. This was our fifth day of an eight day trek and our slightly weary legs revelled in the cool start to the day. At the summit a couple of hours after dawn our achievement was put into perspective as we were followed up by shepherd boys in broken wellies who played a washint, (a wooden flute) its dissonant, lyrical, syncopated sound caught in the bluster suited the forbidding repetitions in the volcanic ranges spread out before for miles like a ruffled cape.



During the five days we had previously walked we had seen some of the most dramatic volcanic landscapes on Earth with sheer abysses, and towering rock formations and its rare animals and otherworldly flora (in particular the giant lobelia, up to six feet in height with a thin trunk topped by a spiky prong of succulent leaves – especially useful as something to grab hold of when having races down the grassy mountain slopes). We had walked through a squat forest of ancient olive and Ecicaboria trees, bent double with lichens, through a grassy clearing smelling of wild roses, where about thirty Gelada baboons dug for roots. Our presence did not bother them as the locals, as Orthodox Christians, were forbidden from eating primates so had not predated them for centuries. Also, as white folk we did not pose the threat of throwing rocks at the monkeys to scare them off our crops, because like everyone else in Africa knows, white men do not do hard work.

The opportunity to sit amongst the Gelada as they beat the ground rhythmically, glancing at us occasionally, their faces full of personifiable expression with their eyebrows raised and their eyes wide as if to say ‘what on Earth do you think you are doing?’ was astonishing. The alpha males were clearly defined, festooned with poodle rock hair styles and hugely impressive mutton chops. They continued with what sounded like a complex and irresolvable debate of lilting whines after they were fairly sure we were not a threat.



The Gelada, like most of the park’s flora and fauna are now protected and the penalties for discrepancy are severe for the locals. Laws have been created which mean locals are now unable to use any wood from the park other than specially planted Eucalyptus because the trees are protected. In order to avoid confusion this also includes dead wood. Quite what the fast-growing, soil-degrading Eucalyptus plantations impact is going to be in the long term had not been answered, but joint projects with the Austrian government were developing the use of fuel efficient stoves to use significantly less wood as well as reducing indoor air pollution and its associated maladies. Now, many of the locals, rather than walk the often huge distance involved, prefer to scour the landscape for animal waste. As there were no bandits, our mandatory armed guard seemed to have the task of policing these laws with his 1964 hammer and sickle stamped rifle.

The Walia ibex were more secretive than their baboon counterparts because during the fifteen years of civil war which plagued the region the soldiers resorted to eating them. Watching the adolescent males practise knocking horns together was an impressive sight but there are only 400-500 individuals remaining. As they fought they were surrounded by the Gelada who act as lookouts for them. We were also lucky enough to see klipspringers (diminutive deer), many Verreaux’s eagles, vultures, lammergeyer, kestrels, falcons and ravens (the spine-chilling sound of the thick-billed raven ever present where we slept) and most luckily of all, the Ethiopian wolf: sub-Sahara’s only wolf. Only 550 individuals remain making it the world’s rarest canid.



One viewpoint we had stopped at, near to the track that ran through the park, looked over a sheer drop where down below we were able to spot ibex. The outstanding beauty of the area was contrasted sharply though when its recent history was revealed. During the Derg era (the Communist regime led by Mengistu who overthrew Haile Selassie in 1974 and ruled until 1991) dissidents were thrown from the viewpoint down the sheer cliff without any semblance of a fair hearing in a time when human life was cheap, it gave the place a disturbing edge.

For the 60,000 people living in the park it was a hard life of chasing cattle up and down the steep paths. The best many could hope for was to become like our scout, Mmbabo, who we were paying 40Birr a day ($4) the official rate as dictated by the national park office who keep a list of scouts, called upon when a group from the park’s 10,000 a year visitors required their services. To put things into perspective, to hire the kerosene stove and a few cooking utensils cost the same per day, and the mule men cost the same as the mules.



On one particular day we were allowed an insight into the lives of the people in the park having been invited to a coffee ceremony at Geech village near to a campsite we stayed at. The fifteen year old girl who had invited us took us into a large circular hut with a high ceiling and enough room for the family’s animals to stay inside at night. It was dark and stained black with soot from the open wood fire that was being used for cooking. In the home was the young girl along with her father, who was keen on the idea of her going to Sudan to make her fortune. There was real beauty in the movement of her hands as she prepared the coffee in the way she had seen her mother do and had repeated some many times that she no longer needed to consider her physical actions, rather she was able to focus upon the ceremonial significance of the act, her hands performing a soft, smooth waltz. In this environment as in much of our time spent in the park, a sense of disruption in time was palpable. Days seemed minutes long and hours lasted for hours and all in what could have been anywhere between the middle ages and the present.



Another interesting aspect of the people in this area was revealed to us as we walked with our guide who told us how the area was once a homeland of a Jewish race, most of whom now reside in Israel. The Beta Israel as they are known claim to be from the tribes of Judah and Levi and to be direct descendants of Moses. During the eighties it was established using DNA testing the Beta Israel’s claim to Judaism was legitimate and were welcomed to reside in Israel. Most of the population took up the offer due to their religious isolation and prejudices they faced in Ethiopia. Israel set up Project Solomon and Moses which brought them to Israel where the majority now work menial jobs and live as second class citizens.

After eight days of trekking we were glad to get back to Debark and a decent wash but we were left with a lasting impression and memories of a fascinating and dramatic environment. Comprehending the ways in which the people eke out a simple existence in such a harsh environment is not easy but their physical and mental adaptation was clear to see in more ways than the sight of them striding past us at 4000m or higher as if they had an important appointment to keep.




Bahir Dar
20/03/08
After a night back in Gondar, we took a minibus to Bahir Dar with one of the street urchins, Kibrit (or Pappi as he like to be called) who lived there, buying his ticket for him to return to his family. We may have been gullible to believe that he could not afford the ticket ($3) but we had built up a bit of a rapport with him and trusted him just about as far as Stuart could throw him.

Bahir Dar, once considered by Haile Selassie as an alternate capital for Ethiopia sits on the banks of Lake Tana, the source of the Blue Nile. The lake is dotted with islands containing holy monasteries but Bahir Dar did have something of the Blackpool about it.



We took a motorboat out to one of the islands where we visited a truly strange church. Circular in design with the pointed roof of a mosque’s minaret, it was adorned with hundreds of small hand-made bells and two large stones hung from a frame that resonated with ominous thick notes. Inside a priest dressed in a complex shawl and hat of racing green showed us his treasures proudly. Sat on the stone floor he held a book up to us. He claimed it was nine hundred years old, written in Ge’ez, the precursor to Amharic, now only spoken by the clergy. Inside its dark animal hide covering were colourful, naïve paintings of Saint George, the Angel Gabriel and others we did not recognize. Their anatomies were highly stylized and vivid making up scenes of such fire and brimstone they were very effective at putting the fear of God into one. As we had eaten breakfast, and had hence broken our fast, we were not permitted to enter the church’s inner sanctum as the priest was concerned that its powers would make us ill. He would not say what was in there. He was the consummate ring master.



In the evening we sat in our hotel bar with a beer pondering the past few days. A priest with a huge, intricate silver cross that a rapper would be proud of, had been staring at us silently for the past forty minutes, while nursing his beer, as if we might spontaneously combust. He ordered one of the waitresses to bring us a plate of warmed, slated grains and grinned indulgently. Everything here is different enough to make one question one’s mental state.

22/03/08
We visited an arabia of a different class: small rooms covered in cushions, shoes off at the door, each room with its own sound system and a buzzer to alert the staff if your every whim was not being catered for. We made our way through t’chat, peanuts, freshly roasted coffee and apple flavoured shishas. They were all brought to us by Heywot, an Oromo woman. The Oromos, who occupy the south of the country, make up the majority of the Ethiopian population and we have heard many conflicting stories about them mostly unflattering from Northerners. Heywot sat on her haunches and deftly prepared the coffee and shishas as if it were an art form. Her certainty and grace left the room with an overriding sense of peacefulness that was very powerful.

About forty minutes bus ride outside Bahir Dar, we entered a small village by the Blue Nile Falls, or Tis Issat ‘waters that smokes’. It was market day and an endless stream of people travelled along the track towards us in quiet concentration, carrying grains, drinks and earthenware pots, vegetables and babies in papooses. Seeing a family unit trek along barefoot it was easy to romanticise about the kind of wordless conversation that they were carrying with them from their thatched hut to the market and back again. We passed them as we crossed the Portuguese Bridge with a procession of donkeys, sheep and goats clacking their hooves on the cobbles. In the image now seared on our memories there was nothing from the modern day, as the bridge’s low wall hid their plastic shoes, they could have walked straight out of the past. The falls themselves were impressive, although these days a large part of the water is diverted to a hydroelectric power station. The use of the Nile, although peaceful on the surface, seems to have underlying tension to it for some Ethiopians, particularly when referring to Egyptians.




Bahir Dar – Lalibela
25/03/08
At 5.00am (Western time) we found a government land cruiser that could take us to Lalibela in half the time rather than the whole day required for the bus ride. As the price was negotiated we heard Kibrit’s name repeated and we were finally given a very reasonable price, he was there in spirit clearly. The vehicle was driven by a playboy working for a man installing drinking water distribution facilities in Lalibela. Water is a real issue and was in fact only available for one day a week. It seemed strange at first to hear this Ethiopian driver talking so intently about the importance of water conservation but it was certainly refreshing to hear. The water problem was of course exacerbated by the influx of tourists who consume much more water than local people, with flushing toilets and showers, a guilt we could of course not separate ourselves from.

The man and two women we shared the vehicle with were full of life, sharing their grains with us and gabbing away. After driving for a few hours we came to a steep sided valley and the road heaved with people in white robes. As the car came to a standstill the women became hysterical as it was clear what they had feared had already happened. The driver instructed us to shut the car doors as they left and drove off rapidly. Apparently the man’s father had died the previous night and they had just returned to find out. It was an unsettling scene as the women shrieked and beat the ground, the valley echoing with the word ‘Xavier’ or ‘God willing’.

Upon arrival in Lalibela nine hours to the south-east of Bahir Dar we updated ourselves on world affairs with Aljazeera TV watching the news of Somalia, Kenya and Zimbabwe with trepidation.

26/03/08
Lalibela was originally constructed as a New Jerusalem when the Muslims conquered the old. At the time of building they did not have the technology to build upwards as high as they wanted so they dug down, creating churches hewn from a single rock in the ground.



The churches were made up of mazes of tunnels leading to dark churches from which came the sound of the strange Ge’ez chants. Their history seems pretty hazy but most sources agree that they were completed in the fourteenth century, how many hundreds of years before this they were started who knows. The priests, trainee priests and monks ranging from early teenagers to blind old men sat together with the bibles reading inside and around the churches of Betes Amauel, Medhane Alem, Maryam and Golgotha. Although there were a few Ethiopians there receiving blessings, the majority of the traffic was foreign tourists. They took pictures of the remains of pilgrims left in a hole in the wall, their legs covered in dried flesh and their brittle toenails exposed. However, in the face of the flash photography the priests retained a stalwart, unblinking sense of dignity that was inspirational.



Outside we met Gareth and Helen, Londoners from New Zealand who were travelling all over the place on motorbikes. We last saw them on the way back from Ras Dejen. We sat in a café and discussed issues of revelation over macchiattos (very milky, sweet coffees) and agreed that although awe-inspiring and atmospheric the place was not conducive to religious experience. Although the place reverberated with the sound of the priests and their pupils chanting ancient chants, it was cut through by the nasal twang of an American asking where the ‘goddamn’ toilet was.


Lalibela – Addis Ababa
27/03/08 – 28/03/08
We paid a bit extra to reserve the better seats on the bus requiring a young man to hold them for us when the bus opened before four in the morning, they are still quite a way away from a computerised ticketing system. We left at six on a Mercedes bus considerably older than either of us, adorned with so much Christian tat the unsaid message was that God’s help would be required for the journey, scheduled to be two days.

Four hours down the road the bus would not enter second gear. With the use of a huge metal spike and a great deal of jiggling the problem was solved, until another two further hours down the road and in deepest darkest Hicksville when the problem seemed more severe. A crowd amassed around us as we read by the roadside giving us the same distance one might to a slow moving but potentially dangerous creature. They whispered gently to one another, a murmur of ‘what is name’ came across them like a cloud as they looked towards us with stony glares. Finally a small boy could not contain himself and was the point of release for the whole gathering. ‘What is name’ he said. Those children who giggled in the silence were brought quickly into line, this was a clearly an important moment. They were flabbergasted at our respective responses but seemed to be reassured that we actually had names and the children invited us to play football with them on the road with a ball of tied together rags.

Next on the agenda was a puncture which was quickly fixed and we arrived in a small town where we ate strange food and slept in the second hotel we came to. The first was one we were taken to on the recommendation of one of our fellow passengers who was well dressed, well-spoken and accompanied by his wife so we assumed we might be taken somewhere beyond our budget. The place though turned out to be a brothel with only double beds, covered in pink silk effect sheets harbouring God knows what.

The next morning at slightly before 5.00am after a Biblical entry into the bus station, with the crowd in white robes parting before us like the Red Sea, we parked our bruised selves on the same seats. At 5:00am the sea poured into the bus station to find their own seats on buses. As the sun rose over the mountains, down the sheer drop the bus veered towards every so often the cockerels onboard crowed above the tinny Ethiopian pop and the thunder of the engine.

The road seemed to be tarmaced in random straights, much of it under construction by groups of Ethiopians led by mysterious Chinese men in dark glasses and using Chinese machinery. A theme which we have seen running throughout Africa so far and is perhaps still of dubious benefit to Africans. After twenty seven hours on the bus and a couple more minor problems we arrived in an overcast Addis Ababa – ‘New Flower’ in Amharic. The bus driver and his mechanics / conductors shook our hands heartily as we left, having shared a successful ordeal with them.

Taking Practical Action in Sudan

In the western world 'energy efficiency' is a buzz term. Companies and environmentalists use it to refer to practices which will, in the long-term, help to prevent dangerous climate change and make good economic sense. In Darfur energy efficiency is a matter of survival.

Practical Action (PA) is a charity based in the UK, founded by E.F.Schumacher author of 'Small is Beautiful'. The approach PA takes is one of long term sustainability, which is often lacking in other NGO’s. It is particularly focused on technology's role in the alleviation of poverty, rather than its consequences. We spoke with the Country Director, Mohamed Majzoub Fidiel in Khartoum and with the staff at the Eastern Sudan office in Kassala, in order to better understand the work PA does and the environmental challenges Sudan faces.

PA has been working for twenty years in North Darfur where wood is the only viable source of fuel for cooking. With the ongoing conflicts women who collect wood are extremely vulnerable to attacks by militias which can result in beatings, rape, mutilation and murder. It is important therefore to minimise the amount of time they are required to collect wood. Energy efficiency is therefore crucial for Darfurian women. With specialist local knowledge PA have developed a cooking stove made with local clay which is extremely energy efficient and can be moulded into individual pots. PA have then trained local people to teach others the relatively simple process of creating these stoves. Through their village networks this knowledge has spread through the region.

The benefit of these stoves in Darfur is very specific as due to the war, people may be forced to leave their homes. The ability to create new cooking equipment from local materials is therefore invaluable. Other charities in the area are trying to promote mass produced efficient stoves which are proving successful under other conditions. However, in Darfur they are inappropriate for the situation because they are expensive and significantly less efficient. The local knowledge that PA utilises is vitally important as in these situations a 'one size fits all' approach is not the most effective. In Darfur PA is also helping by encouraging tree planting of native species and fruit trees providing shelter, food, fuel and potential income.

PA’s work is about more than just survival, it is about development. PA is making markets work for people in Darfur by improving their ability to sell their crops on the domestic and international market. Case in point is hibiscus, which is estimated currently at only 19% of its optimum productivity. By providing a very simple technological tool from Thailand: essentially a small metal pipe, the harvesting process is improved. This improvement allows the farmers to increase the quality of their crop and as a result its market value is increased by 30%. Darfurian farmers have modified the tool to make it more efficient in their environment and are now sharing this knowledge with one another with PA's help

Climate change is a reality in Darfur, the question of whether or not the finger can be pointed at man made emissions for its cause is an impossible and slightly irrelevant one, but the necessity for adaptation to a changing climate is unquestionable. PA is helping local people to better utilise the natural resources available to them. In Darfur PA are focusing upon water, the drought being a contributing factor to the ongoing conflict. The ability given to people by PA to manage their resources properly means they can be sustained long-term.

PA stresses the most important part of its work is capacity building inside villages and creating networks of villages, as well as empowering women by training them in management skills which can therefore allow them an income. This in turn reduces their vulnerability and means in many cases they no longer need the direct support of PA who can rarely travel to the area due to recent attacks upon their staff. Evidence of this includes the fact that villages have been fundraising for themselves, raising over $1 million for their schools.

Through discussions of Sudan's general environmental situation it became apparent how vulnerable the population is to the effects of the climate, most evidently in the form of drought or floods. There is anecdotal evidence that deforestation has also had a major effect in Sudan, resulting in changing rainfall patterns. It seems people are far more aware of the changes in their environment because of their immediate reliance upon it. It directly provides them with food, shelter and fuel.

There is a history of poor environmental management in Sudan which has caused significant problems. Just forty years ago the area near the border with Ethiopia was considered extremely agriculturally rich and it is now semi-desert. In the late 80's there was a significant drought in Sudan so the government decided to plant misquite trees to prevent desertification. While it succeeded in achieving this goal the misquite tree is an alien species that grows extremely rapidly and severely impairs the ability of other plants to grow. Because of the very deep nature of the roots it is also extremely hard to remove. Massive clearance programmes are being undertaken and people are having to adapt to use these trees for charcoal even though it is far poorer quality than traditional wood used. The legacy of these decisions taken decades ago with the best of intentions is causing significant hardship for people today.

All over Sudan people are vulnerable, partly due to conflicts affecting the west, east and south of the country but also largely due to poor environmental management and a changing climate. The work PA is doing in all these areas is vitally important and their utilisation of local knowledge and long-term thinking means their programmes are achieving great success.

For more information on Practical Actions work in Sudan please go to: http://www.practicalaction.org/?id=region_sudan

The Trouble with Sudan

Our purpose

The land where Arabic Africa ends and Black Africa begins, where the Sahara ends and the Blue and White Niles converge has a long history of conflict, continuing into the present.

In the north, Sudan bickers with Egypt over borders. In the west the France-sized region of Darfur is in a state of collapse, exacerbating tensions with neighbouring Chad. The southern region continues to bid for independence after signing a peace agreement dampening the fires of two civil wars lasting a total of thirty nine years. Rebel groups are gaining strength in the east. In the deep south the Ugandan Lord’s Resistance Army continue to pose a real threat.

After spending a month travelling the length of a country the size of Europe by public transport we are in a position to better understand the political state of the country with the luxury of objectivity. Before arriving our knowledge of Sudan was of the conflict in Darfur and the U.S.’s catergorisation of the country as a rogue state. Speaking to people and seeing how they live painted a far more complex picture, although the constant threat of police intervention precluded free dialogue in many instances. Therefore this has been pieced together from half-finished, half-heard half-truths.

Because the different perspectives on Sudan’s strife are so disparate and complex we can only recount what we saw, heard and read as generalisations. However, we will endeavour to relay them as impartially as possible.


Two hundred and forty three peoples and many perspectives

The Northern perspective is one of Sudan as a Muslim country under sharia law plagued by infidel insurgents in the east, south and west.



The Southern and Nuba Mountains’ perspective is that it is a very different country with very different ideals, rich in resources which the North plunders without the due recompense of improving the infrastructure required to allow them to live within the parameters of their basic human rights.

The Darfurian perspective is that the North is not providing them with what they require to survive, let alone progress.

The Khartoum Press perspective was surprisingly freely voiced. An editorial in one paper described in detail the meddling of China into the Darfur region. A rival paper did however describe how the extent of Sudan’s problems were greatly inflated by the Western media. When we spoke to an individual in the Nuba Mountains about the upcoming referendum where the region will be able to vote for independence, he spoke of the Khartoum based radio propaganda which fills the airwaves. The Sudanese television channels were state controlled and generally featured Arabs in an idyllic country setting discussing how fantastically well Sudan was doing.

The Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in conjunction with the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) have the perspective that after the peace treaty with the Khartoum based government – the National Congress Party (NCP), to end the civil war was signed they failed to fulfill their promises of an improved infrastructure in the area. Although the area is providing the North with most of its resources and therefore capital, it continues to drag its heels with regards to investment. The SPLM describes the problem as follows,

…the Sudanese state is essentially an alien political system with a institutional framework that excludes the vast majority of its citizens. The African Sudanese have been excluded from the centre of state power since 1956 while they constitute 69% of the population! How can there be peace? And after the 1989 NIF coup the system further excluded non-fundamentalist moslems, while women have always been excluded at all times. We call this political dispensation the "Old Sudan" based on religion (Islam) and race (Arabism). Some analysts have described the problem of Sudan as "Double Apartheid" or racial and religious apartheid. http://splmtoday.com/

The NGO perspective is that their help is sorely needed but their efforts are regularly thwarted by the National Congress. The UN peacekeeping force of 2006 deployed in an attempt to calm the situation in Darfur was described by the government as ‘foreign invaders’. When collating figures for the death-toll in Darfur the NGOs estimated between 200,000 and 400,000, the UN estimated 200,000 and the National Congress estimated 9000.

The Western media’s perspective, upon which we based our preconceptions, seems to be one of Darfur as the focus of Sudan’s problems and for it to be one of absolute hopelessness, so far down the road to oblivion it is no longer worth the heart-break.


The cradle of conflict

Strategically Sudan has been dealt a bad hand. It nestles amongst warring and unstable nations on all sides. Its main conflicts are with Uganda and Chad. However conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia is causing many people of the Beja tribe to cross the border into Sudan in Kassala where there are huge refugee camps.


Below is an approximate map of the conflicting regions in Sudan




A history of violence

Colonial rule by the British orginally administered the countries as two regions, the Arab North and the Black African South in order to slow the progress of Islam southwards and malaria which was threatening British troops, northwards. After pressure from the North to unite the two regions the Britsh agreed, placing them in charge in 1946. This inevitably led to an exploitation of the South – a wound which runs sore today. After colonial rule ended the country remained with the same administrative structure the British had left it with.

The ‘religious apartheid’ the SPLM refers to is a particular problem as much of the south is Christian due to the work of British missionaries during Colonial rule. This causes conflict with the Muslim South which controlled the entire country under sharia law. It is estimated that Sudan is made up of over two hundred tribes with distinct cultural heritages and practices which are severely impinged upon by strict governmental controls. This also causes problems for many of those in the south who follow animist religions. A long history of slavery is something which the Southerners find hard to forget. It is not that long since the Northerners were systematically snatching young men and women from southern villages.

The first Sudanese civil war (1955-1972), the Anyanya rebellion, ended with the signing of a peace agreement in Addis Ababa costing 500,000 lives. After the then president, Nimeiri, broke the Addis agreement war began again in 1983 and did not end until the death of 1,900,000 people and the displacement of 4,000,000 in 2005.


An uncivil war

The peace agreement which ended Sudan’s second civil war was signed in 2005. It dictated that in 2011 the people of Southern Sudan would be afforded the opportunity to vote on whether or not they want to split from the North and become and autonomous region.

Those we spoke to in the South lived in anticipation of the day when they could make this decision but there was a great deal of trepidation. They feared a repeat of Kenya’s recent polling conflicts. They feared that the vote will be rigged, that they would be terrorised, they feared a lack of democracy and they prayed the West will support them by overseeing the proceedings.




Relations remain strained

A contentious point for Southerners is education. As their children are not being educated to a high enough standard there is fear that there will be yet another generation of people unaware of their rights and therefore unwilling to demand them. This lack of education is a concern for the referendum in which the South will be able to make its bid for independence. If people are not educated they will not be able to make a considered decision with an awareness of the North’s techniques to make a united Sudan sound more appealing. Many believe that Arabic is used as a controlling tool. Despite the presence of a few token Southerners in the parliament, the language is Arabic, while the main administrative language is English in the South. This is also the case in the country’s universities. We spoke to a man who was studying theology. One day a government decree dictated that the following day all lectures and writing would be in Arabic, which he did not know.

There is also concern that Khartoum’s focus upon Darfur may be seen by southern and eastern rebels as a point of weakness and may result in a dramatic increase in hostilities. Many Northerners believe too many concessions have been made to the SPLA and many Southerners have never trusted the South to fulfill its promises. There are signs that new fronts in the North / South conflicts are opening up in the Nuba Mountains, Southern Blue Nile and the East. ‘Sudan’s Dual Crisis: refocusing on IGAD’ www.crisisgroup.org

The Sudan we saw

Upon the SPLA controlled Nuba Mountains it felt very much like another country. The area patrolled by a different army, a different flag flew from the governmental buildings and people danced, sang and drank. The soldiers we travelled in a lorry with spoke of their hatred for the war. Many had lost family and livelihood to the conflict yet there was still a strong sense of a want for a united Sudan. ‘We are the same people’ was a repeated theme. Many wanted semi-autonomy in order for the plunder of their natural resources to be abated. They believed their land was rich and they should therefore get a bite of the pie. The north could provide the south with the infrastructure they required, and the south could provide the resources the north required.


Darfur’s dark horizon

The conflict in Darfur began in 2003 but tensions had been increasing long before that. The region is suffering from overpopulation and decades of drought and desertification.

The conflict has arisen mainly between tribal groups with one side being composed of the Sudanese army and the Janjaweed, a militia taken from the Arab Baggara tribes of the Northern Rizeigat. The other side composes various rebel groups including the Sudan Liberation Movement and the justice and equality movement composed of the non-Arab Fur, Zaghawa and Massaleit ethnic groups. The lines are not clearly defined though and there is much infighting among rogue militias out to assert their power without any particular ideology.

The independent advisory body Crisis Group in their 2006 report described the Sudanese government as bearing ‘primary responsibility for the deteriorating situation’ ’To Save Darfur’ www.crisisgroup.org as they unofficially continue a policy of ‘supporting the well-armed Chadian rebels in Western Darfur.’ As the peace keeping troops on the ground are comprised of an ill-equipped African Union force of 7,000 troops there is a desperate need for international involvement. Suggestions as such have been met by Khartoum with threats of Darfur becoming a ‘graveyard’ for multinational forces and that their involvement would be tantamount to an act of colonialism.

A second independent report (2007) describes Khartoum’s purpose in scuppering peace in Darfur as follows:

The NCP [National Congress Party] wants Darfur in chaos to limit the room for an opposition to emerge, while resettling key allies on cleared land and defying Security Council resolutions by integrating its Janjaweed irregulars into official security structures… ’Darfur’s new Security Reality’ www.crisisgroup.org

Tensions have been raised because of the drought forcing the Northern Arab tribes further south to search for water encroaching onto southern land. These tensions escalated into violence that is now being called genocide or ‘acts of genocide’ by members of the international community including George W. Bush.

Calls from the International Criminal Court (ICC) to bring two leading figures in the atrocities in Darfur identified as Janjaweed commander Ali Kushayb and State Minister for Interior, Ahmed Harum are meeting vitriolic defiance. Khartoum responded to the calls with the threat that it would,

cut the throat of any international official…who tries to jail a Sudanese official in order to present him
to the international justice. ’Future of the World Court in Balance’ YaleGlobal

This is of great concern internationally as it is seen as a test case for many more similar cases in the future. Khartoum claims that it can try these war criminals itself, with out international assistance yet it continues to bomb areas where peace talks are planned. There are calls for the international community to back the ICC, forcefully with the use of sanctions if necessary. This is not happening and will result in the ICC becoming an impotent talk shop.

China’s involvement in Sudan is a particular concern. As we saw throughout Sudan there are Chinese constructions and firms everywhere and the influence is extending into Darfur. The Chinese supply the government with arms and then turn a blind eye to Darfur, partially as there are rich uranium resources which they hope to exploit in Darfur.

However, there are signs that China’s approach to the Darfur problem are changing for the better. Chinese President Hu Jintao is said to be pressuring Sudanese President Bashir to accept the UN’s plans for the installation of support in the region.

It is perhaps possible to draw some parallels between the situation in Darfur and that in the south of Sudan. Both are calling out for equality and have been forced into the position of calling up arms and asking for it forcefully. Perhaps the fundamental difference and the reason that the Darfur conflict’s future is so much bleaker is that the region does not have oil. The south’s bargaining chip of black gold has perhaps saved many of its people’s lives. Darfur has come to the table relatively empty handed.


The most generous of peoples

Although Sudan’s lot seems almost hopeless and it seems damned to a future of conflict, its people remain optimistic. It is this optimism and defiance towards Sudan spiralling into the abyss which leaves one with a glimmer of hope. The further troubles associated with a future in which there will be further pressures on the country due to climate change will undoubtedly test the resolve of the Sudanese as well as the international committee to assist them into a state of democracy in which its citizens are able to live in accordance with their human rights. There was consensus amongst the people we met that Sudan’s politics had a rotten core. They were desperate to relay to us that this should not reflect the Sudanese people. They wanted us to know and tell those we knew that despite its problems and as a result of its wonderful people Sudan is both beautiful and life affirming. All the majority of the Sudanese people want is the opportunity to be treated with the dignity and respect they showed us as we passed through their country.