Djibouti avant tout: Sustainable peace development through a civic nationalist framework enforcing Afar-Issa rapprochement Deek Hussain Jama MSc Political Science: International Relations Student number: 12272337 Thesis supervisor: Dr. Michael Onyebuchi Eze Second reader: Dr. Vivienne Matthies-Boon Date: June 2020 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My deepest gratitude to my mother and sisters for being a huge emotional support during the difficult times throughout this course. Your encouragement is something that I treasure and I hope you know how much I would do the same for you all. I’d also like to thank my friends both in the UK and the Netherlands for being motivating throughout my studies. Finally, I want to express my gratitude to my study advisors, Michael and Vivienne, for guiding me to challenge myself throughout this thesis. I dedicate this to my grandmother, Mako Jama, who unfortunately passed away in the final weeks of my Master’s course. Her stories of Djibouti’s revolutionary moments have motivated me to research the cultural and political history of our people. i ABSTRACT The Afars and Issas; two ethnic groups indigenous to the Horn of Africa involved in an ongoing protraction of violence in Ethiopia. Although the population of Djibouti is majorly comprised of the two, the nation has not seen a similar level of contention since the Civil War. This thesis explores how Djiboutian civic nationalism works to reconcile the mental distances between the Afar and Issa identities caused by a historic and transnational conflict. An explanation will be presented through a case study of bureaucratic and guerrilla relations from the nation’s time as La Côte Français des Somalis to the present-day Republic. By establishing the successes and setbacks of peace development within the nation, this research will deploy a comprehensive understanding that advances knowledge of peace studies in the Djiboutian context. Keywords: Afar, Africa, Civic nationalism, Djibouti, Ethnic conflict, Ethnic politics, Horn of Africa, Issa, Peace studies, Peace development, Political justice, Social Justice, Somali ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................................. I ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................................................... II ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................................................ IV 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................ 1 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................................................ 4 CASE INTRODUCTION: DJIBOUTI’S SOCIO-POLITICAL SPHERE .................................................................. 4 Two people, one nation ............................................................................................................ 4 Pre-independence conflict ........................................................................................................ 6 Post-independence conflict ...................................................................................................... 7 Present-day peace level ............................................................................................................ 9 LITERARY SYNOPSES: CRUX OF THE CONFLICT ...................................................................................... 10 3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................................................... 15 MULTIDIMENSIONAL CONFLICT ............................................................................................................. 15 Anatomy of violence .............................................................................................................. 15 Anatomy of peace .................................................................................................................. 16 COLLECTIVE IDENTITIES WITHIN AN ANTAGONISTIC AND HETEROGENEOUS SOCIETY ........................... 18 FROM ETHNIC TO CIVIC NATIONALISM: A PEACE-BUILDING FRAMEWORK ............................................. 19 PROPOSING A THEORETICAL MODEL ...................................................................................................... 21 4. METHODOLOGY ......................................................................................................................... 21 METHODS .............................................................................................................................................. 23 ETHICS .................................................................................................................................................. 29 5. DEMONSTRATION OF AFAR-ISSA DIVERGENCE ............................................................. 31 AN INHERITED ANTAGONISM ................................................................................................................. 31 ETHNIC POLITICS THROUGH THE STATE ................................................................................................. 33 BEYOND THE BORDERS: A TRANSNATIONAL IDENTITY .......................................................................... 35 6. COMPOSING RECONCILIATION THROUGH DJIBOUTIAN CONVERGENCE ........... 37 WHAT IT MEANS TO BE DJIBOUTIAN ....................................................................................................... 37 RIGHTING THE WRONGS THROUGH POLITICAL JUSTICE .......................................................................... 40 7. THREATS TO PEACE DEVELOPMENT ................................................................................. 45 IS THERE TRUE JUSTICE? ........................................................................................................................ 45 A SPILLOVER OF REGIONAL RIVALRIES .................................................................................................. 47 8. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................... 49 BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................................................................................................. 54 APPENDICES .................................................................................................................................... 66 iii ABBREVIATIONS APP – Afar People’s Party AROD - Action pour la Révision de l'Ordre à Djibouti FDLD - Front Démocratique pour la Libération de Djibouti FLCS - Front de Libération de la Côte des Somalis FRUD - Front pour la Restauration de l'Unité et de la Démocratie IGAD - Intergovernmental Authority on Development MNDID – Mouvement National Djiboutien pour l'Instauration de la Démocratie MPL - Mouvement Populaire de Libération RADD - Rassemblement pour l'Action de Développement et la Démocratie RDA - Regroupement Démocratique Afar RPP - Rassemblement Populaire pour le Progrès RTD - Radiodiffusion Télévision de Djibouti SNPC - Somalia National Peace Conference UN – United Nations iv La défense de la Nation et de l'intégrité du territoire de la République est un devoir sacré pour tout citoyen Djiboutien. (The defence of the Nation and the integrity of the Republic’s territory is the sacred duty of every Djiboutian citizen) - La Constitution de la République de Djibouti, Titre II, Art. 6, 1992. v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The Afar-Issa conflict has been protracted and heightened since the 16th Century (Prunier & Ficquet 2015: 34). A phenomenon so bloody and deep-rooted, it is has been baptised as the longest-running inter-ethnic dispute in the Horn of Africa (Kebbede 2016: 54). Its presence has been felt from the Awash River Valley in Ethiopia to the Obock coast in Djibouti but its magnitude is asymmetrical amongst the region. On one hand, violence remains potent in the Afar and Somali autonomous regional states of Ethiopia. As of 2019, around 124,000 Afars and Issas have been displaced, endured injuries, death, and have had scarce access to food or water (OCHCA 2020). On the other, Djibouti is currently the most peaceful in the Red Sea region (IEP 2019). Indeed, the last occurrence of profound bloodshed was the nation’s Civil War of 1991-1994. It is also one of the five fastest developing nations in the continent and this can be attributed to the relatively amicable socio-political relationship between the Afars and the Issas (IEP 2019). Through the 1994 Peace Accord between the Afar party, Front pour la Restauration de l'Unité et de la Démocratie, and the Issa party, Rassemblement Populaire pour le Progrès, the nation was declared as comprising of one people working for the stability of their sovereign lands, for the first time1 (Djibouti. Council of Ministers 1994). Having said that, the two ethnic groups have never seen such unity before 1991. Embroiled in conflicts during the Middle Ages, French Colonialism and Djibouti’s independence; researchers and reporters alike would take turns speculating the potential dissolution of Djibouti’s existence as a country established on ethnic divisions (Abdi 1977; Schraeder 1993; Shilling 1973). With no constitution before 1992 and a political system that was designed to be exploited, hatred undeniably blistered and festered. In this depiction of Djibouti, we see an unexpected