The Ogaden War, also known as the Ethio-Somali War (Somali: Dagaalkii Xoraynta Soomaali Galbeed, Amharic: የኢትዮጵያ ሶማሊያ ጦርነት, romanized: ye’ītiyop’iya somalīya t’orinet), was a military conflict between Somalia and Ethiopia fought from July 1977 to March 1978 over control of the sovereignty of the Ogaden region. Somalia launched an invasion in support of the Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF) insurgency, triggering a broader inter-state war. The intervention drew the disapproval of the Soviet Union, which subsequently withdrew its support for Somalia and backed Ethiopia instead.
Ethiopia was saved from defeat and permanent loss of territory through a massive airlift of military supplies worth $1 billion, the arrival of more than 12,000 Cuban soldiers and airmen and 1,500 Soviet advisors, led by General Vasily Petrov. On 23 January 1978, Cuban armored brigades inflicted the worst losses the Somali forces had ever taken in a single action since the start of the war.
The Ethiopian-Cuban force (equipped with 300 tanks, 156 artillery pieces and 46 combat aircraft) prevailed at Harar and Jijiga, and began to push the Somalis systematically out of the Ogaden. On 23 March 1978, the Ethiopian government declared that the last border post had been regained, thus ending the war. Almost a third of the regular SNA soldiers, three-eighths of the armored units and half of the Somali Air Force had been lost during the war. The war left Somalia with a disorganized and demoralized army as well as a heavy disapproval from its population. These conditions led to a revolt in the army which eventually spiraled into the ongoing Somali Civil War.
Background
The Ogaden is a vast plateau that is overwhelmingly inhabited by Somali people. It represents the westernmost region inhabited by the Somalis in the Horn of Africa, and is located to the south and southeast of the Ethiopian Highlands. During the pre-colonial era the Ogaden region was neither under Ethiopian rule, nor terra nullius, as it was occupied by organized Somali communities. Independent historical accounts are unanimous that previous to the penetration into the region in the late 1880s, Somali clans were free from the control of the Ethiopian Empire.
Menelik ll's invasions and Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1897
During the late 1880s, as European colonial powers advanced into the Horn of Africa, Ethiopian Emperor Menelik II launched invasions into Somali-inhabited territories as part of his efforts to expand the Ethiopian Empire. These encroachments primarily affected the Ogaden region. The Ethiopian Empire imported a significant amount of firearms from European powers in this period, and the large scale importation of European arms completely upset the balance of power between the Somalis and the Ethiopian Empire, as the colonial powers blocked Somalis from accessing firearms. Control over the Ogaden was expressed through intermittent raids and expeditions that aimed to seize Somali livestock as tribute. In exchange for commercial privileges for British merchants in Ethiopia and the neutrality of Menelik II in the Mahdist War, the British signed the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1897. The agreement ceded large parts of Somali territory to Ethiopia, despite being a legal breach of the legal obligation made by the protectorate.
As indiscriminate raiding and attacks by imperial forces against the Somalis grew between 1890 and 1899, those residing in the plains around the settlement of Jigjiga were in particular targeted. The escalating frequency and violence of the raids resulted in Somalis consolidating behind the anti-colonial Dervish Movement under the lead of Sayyid Mohamed Abdullah Hassan. The Ethiopian hold on Ogaden at the start of the 20th century was tenuous, and administration in the region was "sketchy in the extreme". Sporadic tax raids into the region often failed and Ethiopian administrators and military personnel only resided in the towns of Harar and Jigjiga. Attempts at taxation in the region were called off following the massacre of 150 Ethiopian troops in January 1915.
Second Italo-Ethiopian War and World War II
During the 1920s and 1930s, there were no permanent Ethiopian settlements or administration in the Ogaden or any Somali inhabited land, only military encampments. In the years leading up to the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1935, the Ethiopian hold on the Ogaden remained tenuous. Due to native hostility, the region had nearly no Ethiopian presence until the Anglo-Ethiopian boundary commission in 1934 and the Wal Wal incident in 1935. Only during 1934, as the Anglo-Ethiopian boundary commission attempted to demarcate the border, did Somalis who had been transferred to the Ethiopian Empire by the British during the 1897 Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty realize that they had been placed under Abyssinian rule. In decades following the treaty, Somalis remained unaware about the transfer of their region due to the lack of 'any semblance' of effective administration of control being present over the Somalis to indicate that they were being annexed by the Ethiopian Empire.
Following the end of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War in 1937, and the outbreak of World War II, the Ogaden was united under a single administration with the British and Italian Somaliland's. After the defeat of Italy, power transferred to the British military administration. The British Foreign Secretary proposed to keep the Somalis territories unified after the war, but was rejected by the Ethiopians and France (then controlling French Somaliland) who wanted a return to the pre-war status quo. On 31 January 1942, Ethiopia and the United Kingdom signed the second "Anglo-Ethiopian Agreement", ending British military occupation in most of Ethiopia except Ogaden.
The last remaining British controlled parts of the region were transferred to Ethiopia in 1955. The population of the Ogaden did not perceive themselves to be Ethiopians and were deeply tied to Somalis in neighboring states. Somalis widely considered Ethiopian rule in the Ogaden to be a case of African colonial subjugation. After Italy lost control of Italian Somaliland during the Second World War, these regions came under British military administration. It was during this period that Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie expressed a keen interest in the territory, which his government deemed as a lost province of the empire. He laid claim to them openly, asserting that the ancient Somali coastal region of Banaadir (which encompasses Mogadishu) as well as the adjacent Indian Ocean coastline, rightfully belonged to Ethiopia based on 'historical grounds'.
Ogaden and Haud handovers
Following World War II, Somali leaders in the Ogaden region of Ethiopia repeatedly put forward demands for self-determination, only to be ignored by both Ethiopia and the United Nations. After the establishment of the United Nations, Ethiopia submitted a memorandum to the UN, contending that prior to the era of European colonialism, the Ethiopian Empire had encompassed the Indian Ocean coastline of Italian Somaliland. Somali nationalists unsuccessfully fought at the UN to prevent the establishment of Ethiopian administration in the Ogaden after WWII.
In 1948, the British Military Administration, which had been in control of the Ogaden since the defeat of Italy during WWII, commenced a withdrawal. This transition saw the replacement of British officials with Ethiopian counterparts between May and July of that year in a significant handover process. After the handover, Ethiopian administration resumed in Jigjiga for the first time in 13 years. Then, on 23 September 1948, following the withdrawal of British forces and the appointment of Ethiopian district commissioners, vast areas of the Ogaden east of Jijiga were placed under Ethiopian governance for the first time in their history. Under pressure from their World War II allies and to the dismay of the Somalis, the British gave the Haud and the Ogaden regions to Ethiopia, based on the Anglo-Ethiopian Treaty of 1897. Frederick Willey and James Johnson, among several British MPs who opposed the handover on legal and moral grounds, contended that the transfer was illegal. According to International Court of Justice Judge Abdulqawi A. Yusuf, the transfer was illegal because Britain did not hold legal title to the territory and, even if the 1897 treaty had originally been valid, Ethiopia's failure to adhere to key obligations would have rendered it null. Britain included the provision that the Somali residents would retain their autonomy, but Ethiopia immediately claimed sovereignty over the area. In attempt to fulfill the obligations of its original protection treaties it had signed with the Somalis, the British unsuccessfully bid in 1956 to buy back the lands it had unlawfully turned over.
In the mid-1950s, Ethiopia for the first time controlled the Ogaden and began incorporating it into the empire. In the 25 years following the commencement of Ethiopian rule in this era, hardly a single paved road, electrical line, school or hospital was built. The Ethiopian presence in the region was always colonial in nature, primarily consisting of soldiers and tax collectors. The Somalis were never treated as equals by the Amhara who had invaded the region during Menelik's expansions and were scarcely integrated into the Ethiopian Empire. During the late 1940s and 1950s, covert Somali organizations in the Ogaden formed with the aim of freeing the region from Ethiopian rule.
1963 Ogaden uprising and First Ethiopian-Somali War
During the 1960s, the newly independent Somali Republic and the Ethiopian Empire under Haile Selasie came on the verge of full-scale war over the Ogaden issue, particularly during 1961 and 1964. In the years following there had been a number of reported and unreported skirmishes between Ethiopian and Somali troops. In 1963, the first major post-war rebellion in the region broke out. Known as 'Nasrallah' or the Ogaden Liberation Front, the organization fought a guerrilla war for self-determination. It began with 300 men and soon swelled to 3,000. The Ethiopian Imperial Army launched a large scale counterinsurgency campaign during the summer and fall of 1963. The imperial governments reprisals during the counterinsurgency campaign, which consisted large scale artillery bombardments of Somali cities in the Ogaden, resulted in rapidly deteriorating relations between the Ethiopian Empire and the Somali Republic, eventually resulting in the first interstate war between Ethiopia and Somalia in 1964.
In a bid to control the population of the region during the 1963 revolt, an Ethiopian Imperial Army division based out of the city of Harar torched Somali villages and carried out mass killings of livestock. Watering holes were machine gunned by aircraft in order to control the nomadic Somalis by denying them access to water. Thousands of residents were driven out from the Ogaden into Somalia as refugees. In the years following, insurgent activity continued but declined over the late 1960s due to pressures from both the Ethiopian and Somali governments. The Nasrallah insurgents formed the foundation of the future Western Somali Liberation Front (WSLF). Somali insurgents remained active in the Ogaden hinterlands until the first WSLF operations began operations in 1974.
October Coup and Somali Democratic Republic
In October 1969, while paying a visit to the northern town of Las Anod, Somali President Shermarke was shot dead by one of his bodyguards. His assassination was quickly followed by a military coup d'état on 21 October (the day after his funeral), in which the Somali Army seized power without encountering armed opposition. The putsch was spearheaded by Major General Mohamed Siad Barre, who at the time commanded the army.
Alongside Barre, the Supreme Revolutionary Council (SRC) that assumed power after President Sharmarke's assassination was led by Lieutenant Colonel Salaad Gabeyre Kediye and Chief of Police Jama Ali Korshel. Kediye officially held the title of "Father of the Revolution", and Barre shortly afterwards became the head of the SRC. The SRC subsequently renamed the country the Somali Democratic Republic, dissolved the parliament and the Supreme Court, and suspended the constitution. In addition to Soviet funding and arms support provided to Somalia, Egypt sent to the country millions of dollars' worth of arms shipments. Though the United States had offered Somalia arms support prior to the 1977 invasion, the offer was withdrawn following the news of Somali troops operating in the Ogaden Region.
Western Somali Liberation Front insurgency
In the early 1970s, the rebel organization fighting for Ogaden's self-determination, Nasrallah, began to disintegrate. In response, veteran insurgents and young intelligentsia, displaced from the Ogaden in the 1960s and now part of Siad Barre's government, lobbied for renewed armed struggle. After Haile Selassie's regime was toppled by the Derg, conditions in the Ogaden worsened. A severe drought hit the region, causing mass suffering, while the Derg suppressed news and increased military oppression. By 1974–1975, intense pressure from Ogaden Somalis on Siad Barre's government rapidly grew.