Cyber Ethiopia

The Road from Harar to Jijiga The road from Harar to Jijiga is quite beautiful, but there are some dangers. From Harar you descend through beautiful hills, forests and neatly planted crops. The largest town along the way is Babile, which is a normal crowded little town in the midst of fabulous rock formations. Someone had the idea of growing peanuts around Babile, and now vendors enthusiastically sell you wonderful fresh peanuts at the side of the road. Just past the town are the famous Babile rocks, including the ones where one is perched precariously on top of another. The rock formations are spectacular, although it’s not advisable to stop along the road for too long looking at them. There are a few other villages along the

road. One village famously is in Oromo Region on one side of the road and Somali Region on the other. The village of Bombas has a contraband checkpoint, which I’m sure locals have various ways of circumventing. Much of the road is part of the Babile Elephant Reserve. Don’t get your hopes up. No one has seen an elephant there for some time. In the deep south of the reserve there are still reports of elephants. One piece of evidence is the recent arrest of a number of people for poaching elephants in the reserve. Hopefully they didn’t get the last ones. The road to Jijiga has many scenic spots, but it is not always safe. Most drivers go down this road in the late morning - it is about a 2 ½ hour drive. Too early in the morning or too late in the afternoon are not considered safe. Landmines have been known to find their way onto the roadway. In 1999 a bus was stopped by armed men, and 17 people were killed by them. There is obviously reason to be cautious. The other major danger on this road is the chat trucks. The mild narcotic is popular in the Somali region, and some of the best chat comes from the Hararghe highlands West of Harar. You can see the small trucks (about 3 tonnes normally), loading up around the centre of Alemaya where the biggest chat markets are. The leaves of the chat bush must be chewed while fresh by the aficionados, which means there is a great sense of urgency in getting the chat to Jijiga and the markets beyond. The trucks therefore hurdle down the road at great speeds, with the drivers threatening to kill themselves and their passengers precariously perched on top of the sacks of chat. Unfortunately, they also threaten to kill pedestrians and people in other cars. Apparently a lot of people do die. The last big landmark before Jijiga is the Karamara mountains. They thrust majestically into the air, with tree clad slopes. As in other places on this road, beauty combines with danger. This was the sight of a major battle, where the Ethiopian forces resisted the attack from Somalia in 1976, with tanks and artillery fighting the battle out. The Somalia forces initially won, but eventually were pushed out in 1977. Unfortunately it is still dangerous to climb the beautiful hills of Karamara because of leftover mines, which have tragically killed people. During and after the war with Somalia, Jijiga and area hosted large numbers of Cuban troops as guests of the Derg government of Ethiopia. The side of the Karamara mountains overlooking Jijiga apparently bristled with artillery and Cuban soldiers. There were so many Cubans in Jijiga that they became the dominant foreigners in the area. I was startled to have children call out ‘Cubano, Cubano’ at me instead of ‘Ferengi, Ferengi’ when I first visited Jijiga. Jijiga Jijiga is almost the end of the road in Eastern Ethiopia. The 700 km drive from Addis takes you to within 60 km of the Somaliland border, a nation officially recognized by no country. Past Jijiga the dirt roads are rough - there is little official traffic into this ‘no man’s land’. Recently food trucks have been moving from the Berbera Port of Somaliland over these terrible roads, turning them into even rougher tracks. Increasingly diplomatic and aid visitors are making the drive across to the Somaliland capital of Hargeisa, formerly accessible almost only by air. Jijiga is the capital of the ‘Wild East’. It is thoroughly described in ‘Notes from a Hyenas’ Belly’, an entertaining account by Nega Mezlakia published by Penguin. The author tells of his adventures growing up in Jijiga in the 1960’s and 70’s. Jijiga is described as a dirty little village from which the Empire of Haile Selassie exercised their loose control over the fractious Somali Region. Nega and his friends cowered behind fences at night as hyenas ruled the streets. He recounts his adventures with sadistic teachers and unusual superstitions, as well as the student uprising against Haile Selassie and the subsequent brutal rule of the Derg government. He ends with fleeing from the city as the Somalian forces moved in in 1976. The Jijiga of today is somewhat different, although hyenas still frequent the streets after dark. It is a large city, with plenty of trees to give it a nice green look in the middle of the dry lowlands. Locals told me that the population was 200,000, but I would guess it’s about one half of that. Even at 100,000 it is a big town. It is the bustling capital of the Somali Region, with new buildings going up and an extensive and lively market. One of the reasons the market is so lively is the rather porous border with the unrecognized state of Somaliland. Vast quantities of goods ranging from textiles to satellite dishes make their way into the market, joining the more traditional and expected tin pots and plastic buckets. The Hartishik market 70 km from Jijiga next to the Somaliland border is even better stocked, although it is ironically situated in a refugee camp. You have your choice of stereos to various types of TV’s there, but don’t be tempted - there are plenty of customs road checks to pass! One of the unexpected sights in the heavily Moslem Jijiga is a group of pigs, some of them very large, who live off the garbage in a dry riverbed near the North edge of town. It was difficult for me to find out anything about them, although someone thought they belong to a businessman in Harar who occasionally sells one on the expatriate market. Pigs should be the safest animals in Ethiopia, since neither Moslems or Ethiopian Orthodox Christians will eat pork. At least no one seems inclined to steal the pigs in Jijiga! For the time being Jijiga seems stable and prosperous. The south of Somali Region, in particular the Ogaden Region, suffered from a major 3 year drought which culminated in the famine of early 2000. Aid agencies are very visible in Jijiga, running programmes throughout the region. The turmoil of the Somali people has a profound affect on the countryside around Jijiga. After the defeat of the Somalian forces by Ethiopia in 1978, many Somalis fled across the border to Somalia and lived in refugee camps. With the collapse of the Somalian government of Siad Barre in the late 1980’s, the civil fighting in Somalia drove refugees into the Ethiopian side of the border. Over 600,000 refugees inhabited the camps during their peak from 1988-95. There has been a gradual reduction in the numbers since then, although there are still over 200,000. Perhaps if the situation settles more in Somalia, and the new government succeeds in establishing itself, the refugee situation will be solved. It is unlikely that the turbulence of the Somali Region will ever be entirely solved. Jijiga was founded as a city of occupation for the Ethiopian Empire during the time of Menelik II. Haile Selassies’ father, Ras Mekonnen, founded Jijiga essentially as a military and administrative centre. This was the front line in the Ethiopian claims in Somali against British Somaliland. When the Italians decided to wreak their revenge against Ethiopia for the defeat of Adua in 1896, they not only attacked in the north, but also in the south from their base in Italian Somalia. Ethiopians fought the invasion of the Italians in 1935, but lost, only regaining their control with the help of their British allies in 1941-42. Ethiopians then found their British allies conspiring to form a grand British Somalia colony, including British Somaliland, Italian Somalia, and Ethiopia Somali Region. With the help of the Americans, Ethiopia thwarted the British designs. Although current policies of de-centralization put more in the hands of the Somali Regional government, and the hated Derg regime has been thrown out, the area is still considered unstable. Travelling in the countryside is frequently risky, and conditions should be carefully checked before any trip. Even Jijiga itself it can be dangerous. Apart from the ‘chat crazies’, men who have chewed too much chat and can be quite aggressive and certainly loony, there are also other dangers. A year ago a UN worker was kidnapped at 8 o’clock in the evening right in the centre of town. He was taken for his car, and forced to drive through much of Somali Region down to the border of Somalia, where he was safely released. I’d prefer not to go through that type of tension, so I’ve been very careful at night!