tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16711557.post7508493942154288066..comments2024-03-24T20:40:46.666-04:00Comments on Pan-African News Wire: Somali War Update: Accusations Over Current Conflict; Fighting ContinuesPan-African News Wirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10958190577776906688noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16711557.post-22094162718164237922007-04-13T10:44:00.000-04:002007-04-13T10:44:00.000-04:00Why Ethiopia Invaded Somalia & America Assisted It...Why Ethiopia Invaded Somalia & America Assisted It?<BR/><BR/>Said Alinuri<BR/>March 14, 2006 <BR/> <BR/>Ignoring the obvious demand from the general public of both Somalia and Ethiopia to work for better future relations between the two countries, the government of Ethiopia and backing other Islamo-phobic forces have preferred to exploit the tragic situation in Somalia and conducted the ‘Operation Against hope’. To many Somalis and observers, this was not a response to a security concern but a reflection of strategy of domination inspired by traditional antagonism. The roots of Somali-Abyssinian conflict have been considered in another article.(1) As has been shown, the establishment of Amhara dynasty by 1270, its southward expansion from that time onwards and the resultant menace over the interior borderlands of the then Somali, had caused the protracted wars between the Amhara-led Abyssinia and Awdal-led Somalia. The concern in this article is to demonstrate the role of Abyssinian-European/Western relations in this conflict and ideological factor in this relationship.<BR/> <BR/>This relationship had been first limited to identification of geographical location of Abyssinia and finding channels of communication, but later, Europeans became an active part in the conflict. The antiquity of European concern on the Muslim-Christian conflict in the Horn of Africa is evident from Marco Polo, the only medieval European orientalist, who probably obtained the information from Arab merchants. The traveler drew attention to the events in the Horn and reported that Awdal and Habasha were in daily war and there were a great detestation between them. In a particular confrontation that took place in 1298, he tells us: “… a battle began, fierce and fell on both sides, for they were very bitter against each other.”(2) <BR/><BR/>But this was just an introduction for endless conflict in the Horn for the next seven centuries with European involvement. In fact, less than two decades after the incidents reported by Marco Polo, a Dominican Archbishop who visited the island of Socotra, had been propagating among the crusading Europeans an idea of blockading the Red Sea trade with the help of Abyssinians.(3) The Muslim-Christian conflict in the Horn rekindled or provided an answer for an old European legend which related to the Crusades. From the middle of 12th century onwards, the Christian Crusaders who had begun to lose the war along the east Mediterranean region, developed a myth of an imaginary powerful Christian king that ‘is due to march against Islam from the east in support of his fellow Christians’.(4)<BR/><BR/>The conflict in the Horn began about a century after the birth of the legend. Eventually, Muslim merchants and Abyssinian pilgrims to Palestine had been occasionally transmitting to Europe the developments of the war. Another century later, southern Europeans had gradually identified Abyssinia with the legendry Prester John of Indies from the end of 14th century and after. Thus, the wars between the Christians and Muslims in the Horn “were interpreted in Europe as making part and parcel of the wars of the Crusaders, and the Ethiopian kings were hailed as Christian heroes.” This development was manifest in a message of congratulation sent by King Henry IV of England in 1400, who addressed his letter to the king of Abyssinia Prester John.(5)<BR/> <BR/>Furthermore, Maqrizi states that king Ishaq of Abyssinia (1413-30) had been contacting to Europe in efforts of working together to uproot the Muslims.(6) A European document, found in Naples, also confirmed the existence of this kind of contact.(7) But, the strongest bitterness in these communications was shown in reference to the Abyssinian victory over Awdal and the fall of its sultan, Ahmad Sa’aduddin, at the battle of Ay Faras in 1445. In July, 1448, the head of Island of Rhodes, wrote to the king Charles VII of France to share with him his happiness with the news that the Prester John of Abyssinia defeated his neighboring Muslims, and to express high crusading hopes that the Abyssinian king will also destroy Egypt, Arabia and Syria.(8)<BR/><BR/>Egyptian and Syrian Christians had long been assisting Abyssinia technically. But of the Europeans, it was the Portuguese that undertook costly efforts to reach out Abyssinia, particularly after their coming on East Africa and India in 1498. The purpose of these hazardous Portuguese missions and conquest was made clear. On their arrival in India, they were asked what brought them there, and they simply replied “Christians and spices”. <BR/><BR/>King Manuel (1495-1521) defined the portion of this policy related to East Africa in no flattering instruction he gave his first viceroy of Portuguese India. He ‘enjoined him to seize and enslave all Muslim merchants in Sofala, but not to do any harm to the local Negroes’.(9) Abyssinian leadership shared with Portugal these hateful feelings against the Muslims. In a letter to King Manuel in 1513 to form an alliance, Empress Eleni of Abyssinia, with rich gifts, wrote to him: “Bless and mercy be upon our beloved brother King Manuel, sailor on the high seas, oppressor and tormenter of infidel Muslims … We can supply mountains of provisions and men like unto the sands of the sea … to wipe the Muslims from the face of the earth. We by land, and you, brothers, by the sea.”(10)<BR/><BR/>In the hope of speeding up an alliance against Awdal, urging the Portuguese ‘to come Zayla and make there a church and castle’, and emphasizing the significance of the place, Lebna-dengal also wrote a letter to Portuguese Viceroy in India in 1921: “This town of Zayla’ is a port of much food for Aden and all parts of Arabia, and many other countries and kingdoms; and those kingdoms and lands have no other supplies except what comes to them from Zayla’. When this is done which I send you a word to do, you will have the kingdom of Aden in your hand, and all Arabia, and many other countries and kingdoms, without war or death of people because you will take all their food and they will be starved.”(11)<BR/><BR/>Additionally, he persuaded the Portuguese to take action and promised that he would send them “many people and food and gold … to Zayla’ and Awdal, and all countries of the infidels’.(12) The head of religion in Abyssinia, made contribution to the efforts of making Zayla’ and Massawa’ a Portuguese fortresses and described the move a ‘service of God’.(13)<BR/> <BR/>If that could not be realized, Abyssinian preference was to destroy Zayla’. Although that actually happened in 1517, the Portuguese preferred to take Zayla’ and Berbera because for Arabia the food supplies come from there.(14) The most notable effect of this alliance was the role of Portuguese to reverse the Somali victory over Abyssinia from 1527 to 1543. A modern western view regards this role in the local conflict a decisive achievement for all time for Christianity at large.(15)<BR/><BR/>By Said Alinuri <BR/>Email:xdgasm@yahoo.com <BR/><BR/>References:<BR/>(1)See Alinuri, ‘Abyssinian Invasion: Reminder of a Seven Century-Old Animosity’ in Wardheernews, and AllDalka.com, ect.<BR/>(2) Marco Polo, tar. Henry Yule, 1929, V. ii, pp. 428, 430. The traveler remarked that the conflict was between Habasha and Adan. It is believed that he confused Adal with Adan for the other parts of his information geographically fit for an Abyssinian Muslim neighbor.<BR/>(3) Tamrat, 1976, Ethiopia, Red Sea and the Horn, in Roland Oliver, p. 179.<BR/>(4) Ibid. <BR/>(5) Ibid. <BR/>(6) Ahmad Ali Al-Maqrizi, Rasa’il al-Maqrizi, ed. 1998. p. 233.<BR/>(7) Trimingham, 1965, Islam in Ethiopia, p. 76, n. 2.<BR/>(8) Taddesse Tamrat, 1972, Church and State in Ethiopia, pp. 262-3.<BR/>(9) Ali A. Hersi, 1977, The Arab factor in Somali History, p. 216-7.<BR/>(10) Elaine sanceau, 1944, The Land of Prester John, pp. 22-3; Tamrat, 1972, p. 181.<BR/>(11) Pankhurst, 1982, History of Ethiopian Towns, p. 61; Beckingham & Huntingford, 1961, The Prester John of Indies, V. II, 479, 376.<BR/>(12) Beckingham & Huntingford, 1961, V. I, p. 481.<BR/>(13) Ibid. p. 368.<BR/>(14) Elaine Sanceau, 1944, pp. 41-2.<BR/>(15) Charles Rey, The Romance of Portuguese in Abyssinia, 1969 (1st ed. 1929), pp. 190-1.Pan-African News Wirehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10958190577776906688noreply@blogger.com