Seeking Salaam

Ethiopians, Eritreans, and Somalis in the Pacific Northwest

Sandra M. Chait

• Publisher: University of Washington Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780295801803
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire de l'Afrique

Prolonged violence in the Horn of Africa, the northeastern corner of the continent, has led growing numbers of Ethiopians, Eritreans, and Somalis to flee to the United States. Despite the enmity created by centuries of conflict, they often find themselves living as neighbors in their adopted cities, with their children as class-mates in school. In many ways, they are successfully navigating life in their new home; however, they continue to struggle to bridge old ethnic divisions and find salaam, or peace, with one another. News from home fuels historical grievances and perpetuates tensions within their communities, delaying acculturation, undermining attempts at reconciliation, and sabotaging the opportunity to reach the American Dream. In conversations with forty East African immigrants living in Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon, Sandra Chait captures the immigrants' struggle for identity in the face of competing stories and documents how some individuals have been able to transcend the ghosts from the past and extend a tentative hand to their former enemies.

APPENDIX 1

TIME LINE (1890–2010)

1890: Eritrea becomes a colony of Italy.

1895-96: First Italo-Ethiopian War. Ethiopians defeat Italians at Battle of Adwa.

1930: Haile Selassie is crowned emperor of Ethiopia.

1935-36: Second Italo-Ethiopian War. Italy invades Ethiopia. Somali-speaking parts of Ethiopia combine with Italian Somaliland to form the province of Italian East Africa. Selassie flees to England.

1941: Ethiopians defeat Italians with help from Allied troops. Selassie returns from exile. Eritrea comes under British administration.

1943-44: Weyane rebellion. Tigrayans revolt against Selassie's abuse of Tigray province and people.

1948-54: Britain cedes Ogaden, including the Haud, to Ethiopia.

1950: Italian Somaliland becomes a United Nations trust territory.

1956: Italian Somaliland is renamed Somalia and granted internal autonomy.

1960: British Somaliland gains independence from Britain and merges with southern Somalia to form the Somali Republic. Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) formed in Cairo.

1961: ELF guerrillas fire the first shots of the Eritrean thirty-year war against Ethiopia.

1963-70: Oromo peasant uprisings break out in Ethiopia.

1962: Haile Selassie officially annexes Eritrea as Ethiopia's fourteenth province.

1964: Border hostilities erupt between Ethiopia and Somalia.

1969: Mohammad Siyad Barre becomes president of Somalia after a military coup following the assassination of the former president, Abdirashid Ali Shermarke.

1970: Siyad Barre declares Somalia a socialist state and nationalizes most of the economy.

1970-72: ELF splits, and the core of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) is established. ELF declares war on the EPLF.

1972-74: Severe drought and famine in Ethiopia, largely ignored by the government, lead to attacks by dissident groups.

1974: Revolution in Ethiopia. Haile Selassie is overthrown by committee of junior army officers, the Derg. Somalia joins the Arab League. ELF and EPLF declare a truce and work together for Eritrean self-determination. Oromos form the Oromo Liberation Front.

1975: The Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), a rebel group, emerges in Ethiopia.

1977: ELF and EPLF succeed in capturing the majority of Eritrean towns.

1977-78: Lieutenant Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam becomes chairman of the Derg and aligns Ethiopia with the Soviet Union. The Derg unleashes the campaign of bloody violence known as the Red Terror. Ogaden War between Ethiopia and Somalia. Ethiopian forces aided by Cuban troops and Soviet advisers push Somali fighters out of the Ogaden.

1978-79: Ethiopia, with Soviet backing, reoccupies Eritrea's major towns and cities. EPLF withdraws to its mountain base around Nakfa.

1981: Renewed civil war between EPLF and ELF. ELF units driven into Sudan, where they splinter into competing factions. some ELF members reconcile with EPLF and rejoin the war against Ethiopia. Somali opposition group, the Somali National Movement (SNM), forms in London and then moves to Ethiopia.

1982: EPLF repulses Ethiopia's Red star campaign.

1984-85: Famine in the Horn, caused by war and drought.

1986: Mengistu adopts a Marxist-Leninist constitution and renames the country the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.

1988: EPLF victory over Ethiopia at Afabet. Ethiopia and Somalia sign agreement to respect one another's borders. SNM attacks Somali government troops in northern Somalia. In reprisal for the attacks, Siyad Barre's forces massacre Isaqs.

1989: The TPLF drive Mengistu's government from Tigray and together with other rebel groups forms the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).

1990: Somali opposition groups challenge Siyad Barre, and the violence spreads throughout Somalia, disrupting food supplies and causing widespread starvation.

1991: Siyad Barre flees Somalia, and civil war breaks out. Competing clan factions take over the country. Somaliland declares unilateral independence. Mengistu flees Ethiopia, and EPRDF enter Addis Ababa; EPLF march into Asmara and establish a provisional government.

1993: Eritrea becomes independent from Ethiopia after 98 percent of the population vote in favor. Battle in Mogadishu between U.S. forces and those of Somali warlord Mohamed Farah Aideed.

1994: EPLF becomes the new government, the People's Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), and establishes an independent constitution.

1998-2000: Border incidents escalate and become the Ethiopian-Eritrean border war.

2000: Ethiopia and Eritrea sign a peace agreement in Algiers.

2002: Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission awards Badme to Eritrea.

2004: Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) set up in Kenya under the presidency of Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed.

2005-6: Tensions continue to plague both Eritrea and Ethiopia.

2006: Somalia's TFG, with help from Ethiopia and the United States, regains control of Mogadishu from the Islamic Courts Union (ICU).

2006-9: Ethiopian and U.S. forces battle terrorist ICU splinter groups in Somalia, among them the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS).

2009: ARS leader Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and his faction break with the more extreme wing of that group and agree to cooperate with the TFG. Ethiopian troops leave Somalia, and a restructured TFG is set up under Sharif s presidency.

2009-10: Violence continues between the TFG and al-Shabaab (Youth), an ICU extremist wing with ties to al-Qaeda.

APPENDIX 2

PARTICIPANTS

Listed alphabetically by first name

Abdi Madey Ali

Abdihakim Hassan

Abraham (Abe) Demisse

Aklilu (Tefono) Debesay Foto

Almaz Bahre

Amina Sharif

Amina Sheikhuna

Asia Mohamed Egal

Bereketab Gebrehiwet

David Makonnen

Dawit Nerayo

Desta Wondwassen

Esayas Mehanzel

Ezra Teshome

Haddis Tadesse

Haji Shongolo

Hamadi Hassan

Jamal Gabobe

Koshin Mohamed

Lette Hadgu

Makonnen (Michael) Damtew

Mehret Mehanzel

Mohamed Omer

Mowliid Abdullahi

Mursal Abdullah

Nuria Agraw

Omar Eno

Rahel Gebreab

Redi Mehanzel

Senait (Sonya) Damtew

Senait Habte

Sofanit (Sofi) Mulugeta

Ubax Gardheere

Yegizaw Michael

Yodit Tekle

Yosieph Tekie

Interviewees who requested that I not identify them for reasons of security were given fictional names or had their words absorbed into general or anonymous contexts.

FICTIONAL NAMES

Abraha Alemseged

Tesfaya Kumera

Shigut Kumera

Gelete Gemechu

Sahra Khalid

NOTES

ONE: AT “HOME” IN THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

1 The English spelling of Er...