Afars, Issas . . . and Djiboutians: Toward a History of
Denominations
Simon Imbert-Vier
Northeast African Studies, Volume 13, Number 2, 2013 (New Series) , pp.
123-149 (Article)
Published by Michigan State University Press
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/nas.2013.0012
For additional information about this article
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/536645
Access provided at 12 Jan 2020 00:46 GMT from University of Cambridge
Afars, Issas . . . and Djiboutians:
Toward a History of Denominations
SIMON IMBERT-VIER, Centre d’études des mondes africains, France
ABSTRACT
This article analyzes the ethnic denominations around the Gulf of Tadjoura. By
using travel narratives from the nineteenth century and colonial archives from the
twentieth, it provides a history of these denominations, their construction and
evolution, and the representations they carry. In the nineteenth century, denominations proposed by African informers were used by European travelers to
describe the political and social situation in the area as they understood it. Later,
the colonial administration wanted to identify groups and individuals in order to
manage the inhabitants and secure its domination over the country. We show
how this practice was an impossible task because of the identity lability of
individuals and groups and the impossibility of defining accurate limits between
them, either physical or symbolic. Nonetheless, these constructions have been
used until now to legitimate access to the State and country’s resources.
On 19 March 1967, 60 percent of the voters in the last French colony in
continental Africa—Côte française des Somalis (CFS) or French Somaliland—
officially chose the maintenance of French sovereignty with a new denomination: Territoire français des Afars et des Issas.1 Hardly ten years later, on 8
May 1977, 98.8 percent of the voters approved of the attainment of
Northeast African Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2013, pp. 123–150. ISSN 0740-9133.
© 2013 Michigan State University. All rights reserved.
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independence of the country under the name of République de Djibouti. As
one Djiboutian observer noted: “In order to remove from the first day of
independence all tracks of tribalism, all risk of ethnical division, the new
State’s officials borrowed from the country capital city . . . the prestigious
name of Djibouti to give to the Republic.”2 To build a national identity, the
new State did not identify itself in reference to its inhabitants but related to
its main town to create new nationals: the Djiboutians.
At the time of independence,3 the country was torn apart, literally by
the Barrage encircling the town,4 but also because of a 20-year confrontation between independence militants and supporters of French sovereignty.
With the growing demand for independence coming from some of the
Djiboutian political leaders after 1958,5 and after the union of British and
Italian Somaliland within the Republic of Somalia in 1960,6 the French
administration associated Somalis with supporters of independence and
favored inhabitants identified as Afars in accessing political and economic
resources, such as employment on the harbor’s docks.7
Since 1896, the town of Djibouti— created from scratch in 1888 —was
the capital city of the Côte française des Somalis, a colony created at the same
time. Besides being an imperial outpost on the sea routes to Madagascar and
Indochina, this port was the outlet of the railway from Addis Abeba, built
between 1897 and 1917. This “railway territory,”8 regarded by the authorities as a land inhabited primarily by Somali nomadic cattle breeders, was
the sole colonial investment until the beginning of the 1930s. Then, an
extension toward the West and North began, ending around 1950 with the
delimitation of the boundary with Ethiopia.9 Others inhabitants of the
colony, who were called Danakil10 until the 1950s and who were mostly
nomadic cattle breeders, were neglected by the colonial management. The
1958 ideological and political reversal brought to power leaders belonging
to groups assimilated to those forgotten territories, behind the emblematical figure of Ali Aref Bourhan.11 In this context, the representation of an
insurmountable division between those two groups—seen as the only
autochthonous ones in the colony12—took shape and was expressed
through the denomination of Territoire français des Afars et des Issas in 1967.
This “identitary crystallization” aimed to distinguish (and so divide) the
Issas from the Somalis and to bring the Afars to the fore.
This link between the emergence of ethnic identification, its use, and
colonial administrative chronology confirms the necessity to question those
Afars, Issas . . . and Djiboutians
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denominations, the way they were produced, and how the different political
actors and entrepreneurs took hold of them. Those representations, although reversed again after independence in 1977, establish the access
rights to the country’s resources. If power is assimilated to Somalis and
opposition to Afar13—in an emblematic way during the Frud revolt in the
1990s—the national representation built within the single governing party
always takes care to explicitly include representatives of different “national
groups” the same way the colonial administration did.
To question ethnic denominations in Djibouti does not mean to come
back to crystallization or the symbols they represent, while individuals and
identities overlap groups14 and groups themselves evolve.15 Even less does
it mean trying to show “realities” that ethnic names could either cover or
hide.16
Identification terms are not univocal; their meanings change according
to situations and needs. As a practitioner of ethnic identification in Djibouti
eventually stated, “different groups muddle up and different denominations
overlap often to apply to same individual”;17 individual identities are
multiple resources that actors can mobilize according to their need at a
particular moment. However defined and expressed during the identification situation, they are later interpreted in different contexts to
explain political situations involving groups, themselves described by
the use of those tools without establishing the continuities. They can
impose themselves on individuals, particularly within bureaucratization;18 their essentialization makes social structures more rigid for the
advantage of those who can show evidence of the “good” identities in
front of newcomers.
Generally, in an identification situation— group or individual—three
elements must be taken into account: identified person or group, identifying
person, and identifying term.19 The analysis of the relationship between
groups, individuals, and symbols carrying representations must take into
account the identification situation— during which the requests and presuppositions of actors are usually neither explained nor shared—to clarify
the concrete form of identity-building.
Around the Gulf of Tadjoura, in those processes of identity-building,
two main categories of actors intervene: Africans and Europeans. As far as
we are concerned here, the former are the identified but also the identifying
persons. They are the first producers of identifiers that they deliver with
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their own fluctuating conceptions and interests. The situation is different in
particular if they identify their own group or another one. The other actors,
the Europeans, are identifying persons: they wish to understand and describe social and political realities with various goals— commercial, politi-
cal, administrative, or even scientific. They are filtering the information
they get—mostly through the mediation of interpreters who add another
bias—with their interrogations and previous knowledge, their readings, and
acquaintance with other cultures. They can also intervene in the identifier
production by special request.
Within a description of denominations, it is impossible to fully get out
of “ethnic vocabulary” and the conceptions it carries.20 However, studying
the invention and changes of identifiers and their use, and the relationships
between words and the construction they cover at one moment, allows one
to rethink them, if not to really deconstruct them. I would like to open tracks
for a history of denominations around the Gulf of Tadjoura, showing how
they were identified and the representations they carried at the moment
they were discovered by Europeans in the nineteenth century, and how they
evolved as identity categories were used for political constructions21 and
access to resources.
The first Europeans to cross the actual Djiboutian territory, around
1840, collected identifiers and tried to organize them to describe the local
political situation and to facilitate shorter and safer journeys; travelers
around 1880 took a similar approach, adding the commercial and political
purposes of the early colonial appropriation.22
In the 1930s, with the beginning of the conquest of the territory beyond
the coast and the railway, the administration again took up this catalog of
ethnic names to identify African social and political structures. From the
Second World War, the administration made up and put into effect system-
atic identification practices.23 They mainly consisted in relating inhabitants
to already-identified groups, whose meanings and limits evolved dialectically during the process. A change happened in the meaning of the identification of the groups living within the Djiboutian territory and the relations
between inhabitants and those identities when local political life began
after 1945. In 1956, all nationals (French, then Djiboutians) became citizens
and therefore eligible voters. At that moment, the policy of identification of
the nationals was mostly aimed at ensuring continued French sovereignty
Afars, Issas . . . and Djiboutians
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over the territory, and subsequently at maintaining alliances within the
ruling group that issued from the independence process.
Descriptions from Nineteenth-Century Travelers
Between 1841 and 1890, 11 travel accounts were published by ten Europeans who crossed the terrestrial areas around the Gulf of Tadjoura between
1839 and 1886,24 before the installation of colonial rule. One travel was
narrated twice and one traveler made the journey two times. There were
other travelers as well, but they did not publish accounts of their journeys.
These narratives can be divided into two stages. The first stage, beginning in the late 1830s, consisted of travelers typically appointed by their
governments whose purposes were mostly exploratory. Their accounts
included geographical descriptions that detailed toponyms and described
itineraries and obstacles, the peoples, and the social and political structures
they encountered. From 1877, the travelers became implicated in the
beginnings of the colonial movement and produced accounts that Isabelle
Surun calls a process of conquest geography.25
In addition to a Protestant missionary speaking German, these
writers included three French and three English voyagers traveling in
two groups that met in Shewa, and three Italians in the second period.
Some were mandated by their governments; others travelled more or less
for themselves.
Travelers went from the coast to Shewa. Return trips were only narrated by Rochet d’Hericourt’s (second trip), Paul Soleillet, and Jules Borelli.
Table 1 summarizes the section of the crossing between the coast and the
Awash river, which symbolized the entrance into Shewa.26 The first travelers all left from Tadjoura and took approximately the same route alongside
Lake Assal and the southern end of Lake Abbé. It is only during the second
period that Zeila, Assab, or Obock (passing through Tadjoura) became
starting points. The last traveler, Borelli, departed finally from Tadjoura
after failing from Djibouti on the South shore of the Gulf.
Writers mix three main sources for their descriptions: information
obtained from local inhabitants, either directly or via intermediaries; their
own observations and eyewitness accounts; and publications from previous
travelers. The first European travelers across the Gulf of Tadjoura landscape
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Table 1: Chronology of Travels and Publications
DEPARTURE
ARRIVAL
NARRATOR
PLACES
DAYS PUBLICATION
26 April 1839
29 May 2839
Karl Wilhelm
Isenberg
Tadjoura-Awash
34
1843
3 August 1839 27 September
1839
Xavier Rochet
d’Héricourt
Tadjoura-Allata
55
1841
17 May 1841
11 July 1841
Cornwallis Harris
R. Kirk
Tadjoura-How
41
1844
1842
7 March 1842
20 May 1842
Charles Johnston
Tadjoura-How
56
1844
15 September
1842
20 October
1842
Xavier Rochet
d’Héricourt
Tadjoura-Awash
36
1846
15 May 1877
9 September
1877
Antonio Cecchi
Zeila-Bonta
118
1886
22 August
1882
29 September
1882
Paul Soleillet
Obock-Awash
39
1886
11 January
1883
10 April 1883
Pietro Antonelli
Assab-Dhora
92
1883
28 July 1885
−
Emilio Dulio
Assab-
−
1886-88
14 April 1886
10 June 1886
Jules Borelli
TadjouraBoulohama
58
1890
identified groups and imposed the earliest taxonomies. They tried to
describe social and political organization but were confronted quickly by
the ambiguities and approximations of rigid definitions in the face of fluid
and ever-changing social realities.
Because our travelers do not detail the specific modes by which they
acquired their information, we can only gather some clues. Their knowl-
edge of local language was unequal. Some of the earliest explorers had lived
for a time in the Red Sea area and spoke Arabic (Isenberg, Rochet
d’Héricourt). Isenberg even claimed to have an elementary knowledge of
Amharic, Oromo, and Afar.27 Harris and Kirk, from the Army of India,
participated in an official embassy escorted by military personnel using
interpreters. Johnston had previously been in India and seems to have
spoken Arabic. They all used local guides, who indicated toponyms and the
names of resident groups. Even if the area was sparsely settled and meetings
with the locals were infrequent, during some halts, which could be long,
travelers exchanged information with inhabitants they may also have
employed.28 These exchanges were indirect because few locals were able to
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use Arabic: someone capable of it is often very specially mentioned.29 A
detailed analysis of informants’ motivations and of the local meanings
carried at the time by denominations is not possible, partly because of the
few existing studies;30 the approach we are suggesting here will perhaps
allow new research.
Our analysis of travelers’ descriptions retains the ethnic names they
used. Even if they remind us of present-day usages, any continuity of
meaning cannot automatically be assumed and must rather be clearly
demonstrated so as to avoid anachronism.
Isenberg talks about several ensembles (Danakil, Somal, Arab, Galla)
and tribes. Among the latter, he met on his way We’ema, Mudaitu, Ad Alli,
Galeila, and Burhanto. He mentions also Debne, who were concluding a
conflict with Mudaitu, where they were helped by Arabs who came from
Aden. He shows an interesting situation: “The We’ema Danakil maintain
about 100 Somal bow-men, who have been taken from various Somal tribes,
and are now naturalized among them: they still preserve, however, their
Somal tongue, and marry among themselves, without intermixing with the
Danakils.” If he sees the We’ema as a part of Danakil, it is a different story for
the Mudaitu: “the shore [of the Awash] to the right is inhabited by the Allas,
Ittoos, and Mudaitus; and to the left, by the Danakils.”31
Four months later, Rochet d’Héricourt distinguished two main groups:
Saumalis and Danakiles, who exchange their grazing pasture according to
rains, and claimed that “this mutual need maintains usually good harmony
between those two large tribes.”32 He distinguished kabile inside Danakil of
Adel: Ad-Ali, Assouba, Débenet, Débenet-Buema, Déniserra, Achemali, Takahides, and Hasen-Maras or Modeïtos, who lived in Awsa. “Bédouins of ras
Bidar’s kabile are a mix of Débenets, Asouba, Hasen-Maras”33 and “some
Asoubas, Débenets and Hasen-Maras are mixed with real Takahides.”34 This
was partly explained by the fact that “all inhabitants of the Adel kingdom
speak the same dialect . . . : this community of language is the main link of
their nationality.”35 During his second trip, three years later, he encountered Mahamet-Ibrahim-Loéta, head of the Debenets and signaled that
“Harraris belong to the Saumalis race.”36
Harris talks about “all the tribes of Danakil, Eessah, Somauli and
Mudaïto.”37 However, while maintaining the Mudaïto’s specificity, whose
“capital city” is Awsa, he divides them into Assa-himéra, Issé-hiraba, Galeya,
Dar, and Koorha. He sometimes integrates the Eesahs into the Somauli and
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speaks about “Aboo Bekr,38 of the Somauli tribe Aboo Salam.”39 The
Adrussi, part of the Debeni—themselves a subset of Danakil—were under the
authority of Tadjoura’s sultan, “Lohaïta ibn Ibrahim, Makobunto, Akil, or
chief of the Debeni and a section of the Eessah, asserting supremacy over
Gobaad, as a portion of his princely dominions.”40 This chief had taken
control of the caravan route fighting “the Galeyla tribe of Mudaïto,” who
were “on non very amicable terms with the Danakil.”41 Kirk, who travelled
with him, also distinguished Mudaïtus from Danakil.
If none of these authors use the identifier Afar, is it because their
Arabic-speaking interpreters translated it into the Arabic Danakil—which
would be a confirmation of their way of communication— or because
informants did not use that term locally? In any event, Johnston was the
first to identify Danakil with Affah and to mention that Abyssinians called
them Adal.42 He also mentions the Debenee and the Wahamah and Muditee of
Owssa. He indicates the Issah Soumaulee as inhabitants of the South of the
Gulf up to the territory of Wahama Dankalli43 and specifies that “a great
portion of the Issah Soumaulee acknowledged Lohitu as their chief, and
bore the Debenee mark upon their breast. . . . Half of the Wahama tribe . . .
were actually Issah Soumaulee.”44 He concludes that “at the present day,
the Dankalli and Soumaulee are distinct”45 but share a common origin. He
also signals another identity change, with the “Assobah Galla, who . . . are
now, however, considered to be a Dankalli tribe.”46 He also indicates the
presence of mixed people who claimed multiple identities.
This first set of travelers’ observations also provides a view of political
authority around the Gulf of Tadjoura in the 1840s that does not appear to
coincide with ethnic or tribal identities. First, the country of Tadjoura and
sea access; to the South-West was the Debné country headed by Lo’oyta who
unified politically numerous groups; to the north-west, the Môdhatou’s
Awsa; to the South, the Somali country. However, the territorial and human
limits between these sets were blurred and fluctuating: they were perhaps
“interstitial frontiers” as proposed by Igor Kopytoff.47 The many individual
and collective allegiances depended on immediate events, seasonal transhumance patterns, and political circumstance. All the inhabitants shared
the same way of life, pastoral and nomadic, the same cultural and social
references, and practiced intermarriage.
After a long period without narratives, five travels undertaken around
1880 were published at the same time the occupation of the Western Red
Afars, Issas . . . and Djiboutians
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Sea shore by Europeans began.48 Two of these travelers were crossing from
Tadjoura, two from Assab, and the first accessed by Zeila in 1877. The
variability of these itineraries seems to indicate that the political situation
had become less stable along the established routes. Accounts are shorter
and less expressive; more practical descriptions concentrate on itinerary
details and costs. Even if the journeys were still an adventure for the
travelers, they no longer represent the exploring of unknown territories but
rather the working out of reliable means to cross them. The conditions of
information gathering seem the same, except for the additional knowledge from previous travelers’ accounts, which are used as “cultural guide
books” in giving meaning to descriptions and representations. Later
travelers do not furnish any additional details about how they concretely
obtained their information; their linguistic capacities seem comparable
to those of their predecessors.49
Antonio Cecchi, leaving from Zeila, was the first to detail the internal
organization of Somalis,50 particularly Isa who were found between Zeila
and Herrer and divided “in three main tribes called Haber-Gerhais, HaberAual e Haber-el-Jalec . . . all sons of Ishac.”51 He talks also about the
Uarsangali and Migertini living farther East. About Afars, he identifies two
main groups, Devenekemena, toward Shewa, and Assaiamarà, toward the
sea. He distinguishes “Assaiamarà full blood”52 from Mudaitù and those of
Anfari. He also insists on the similar way of life of Afars and Somalis.53
In 1882, Paul Soleillet, upon crossing from Tadjoura, described the Afar
political structure: “the Reitta’s sultan . . . is allied to Tadjoura’s and Loïta,
and these three sultans are feudataire of Mohammad Hanfalé, Haoussa’s
sultan.”54 But there exist also “two great Afar tribes independent and
salvage between salvages”:55 Gallelas and Aissameras. He also mentions
inter-marriages between Afars and Çomalis Issas.56
In 1883, Pietro Antonelli travelled north from Assab, the first European
to cross Awsa and the Awash lakes. He distinguishes Assaiamaras between
the sea and Awash from Adoiamaras beyond the river. He mentions Modaito
among Assaiamaras. Two years later, Emilio Dulio left also from Assab, but
his description does not provide new information.
When in 1886, Jules Borelli wished to travel to Shewa, “Issah-Somali
and Danakil [were] at war” and caravans deserted “the road used before
French installation in Obock”57 from Zeila, to go through Awsa. But this
road was then closed by a conflict between Galela and Debenet.58 After
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failing to depart from Djiboutil, in the South of the Gulf, he was obliged to
leave from Tadjoura. He identifies two entities (Issah and Danakil) and
wonders whether “the authority exercised by Abou-Bakr over Issah-Somali
is real; it is hard to understand when you know that this man is Dankali.”59
Among Afars, he distinguishes Mohammed Loëta, head of Adoïamara, Takaïli
in Obock, Adali in Rehayto, and Assoba in Ambado.
To sum up, at the beginning of the colonial settlement, according to
these narratives, it seems that the representation of the inhabitants of
territories around the Gulf of Tadjoura as divided into two groups (Somalis
and Afars) was largely established. But these groups were not seen as fully
homogenous; relations between groups, hierarchies, and political constructions were not well understood but seen as in motion. This description and
analytical understanding of the local inhabitants continued during the
colonial period, mostly in the area under colonial control. After the 1888
Anglo-French agreement, which opened the Southern road, and then the
building of the Addis-Djibouti railway, the road toward Harar was favored
by the French. The Northern area was neglected, and its inhabitants rarely
described for a few decades. It was only at the beginning of the 1930s that
the conquest of the Western parts of the colony started from the Dikhil post,
created in 1928 on the “boundary line between Afars and Issas.”
Identifications by the Administration Since World War II
In December 1939, Hubert Deschamps, then governor of the CFS, made an
important step in the assignations’ history in Djibouti: he published a
circulaire60 asking commandants de cercle to switch their attention from
groups identification—“at present mostly known”61—toward that of individuals by making a population census. Among the colony inhabitants, he
distinguished three main sets: Issas and Adohyamara, the census of whom
should be comprehensive,62 and the other Danakil, Assahyamara, for whom
the census “should be postponed if it can cause incident.”63 For the nomads,
the census would not be made individually but “with information sought
from competent worthies”64 who were to be the references. The scope of
this work was to mark “a new step for our ascendancy over inhabitants,”
which will bring some “facilitation . . . of the political situation and security.”65 The time for discovery was over; the administration now wanted to
Afars, Issas . . . and Djiboutians
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adapt to social structures it could distinguish to use them.66 This enterprise
was done the same way as earlier ones: mostly not a direct knowing, but a
collection of information through intermediaries, that is, translators and
worthies. Relations with informants were changed by the making of a
colonial situation.67
The events of the war prevented the implementation of this ambitious
project. However, in 1942, an officer who commanded the districts (cercles)
of Ali Sabieh and Dikhil and participated in the political and military
organization of the territory’s occupation, Édouard Chedeville,68 completed
a genealogical census (recensement généalogique) of Issas. In this document,
a few hundred pages in length,69 he tries to identify family lineages from
chiefs’ declarations and to situate individuals inside it. Regularly updated at
least up to the 1970s, this work constituted for more than 30 years a tool to
identify Issas and to classify the French citizens among them.70
A first use of this census consisted in raising a poll tax on nomads, from
1944.71 The scope was not truly fiscal—with income being very low— but
rather population control.72 Furthermore, the link between census, meaning identification, and right to stay on the territory appeared immediately:
from 1944, the territory’s access was in theory forbidden to nomads out of
census.73 This question became particularly important in the town of
Djibouti. From 1947, we see in the colony’s Official Journal (Journal officiel)
a new type of decision: expulsion orders detailing ethnical identifiers for the
concerned persons. The study of the 10,000 decisions made between 1947
and 1963 provides clear evidence of the making of ethnical representations
and distinctions. For instance, the identification of a Somali subset, Issaqs on
the same level as Issas, emerges slowly from the agglutination of several
groups becoming components of the new one.74
It was also during the 1950s that the name Afar was re-attributed to the
inhabitants of the West and North,75 called Danakil/Dankali in almost all
texts from the end of the nineteenth century. This denomination change
marked the end of the conquest of Afar territories76 begun in the 1930s and
symbolized their progressive incorporation into the Djiboutian space. The
Afars’ areas were then administered, described, and the denominations of
their representations became more accurate.77
After World War II the question of inhabitants’ identification carried a
political stake linked to citizenship. In 1945, a Conseil représentatif was
established, where the representation was not territorially but ethnically
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based, with two Afars, two Somalis, two Arabs, and six French up to 1950.78
Despite the French Fourth Republic Constitution of 1946, which made
citizens of all nationals, the indigenous remained second-class voters. It was
only the loi cadre or loi Defferre (23 June 1956) that unified French
nationals: they all became full citizens and electors, including women.
Elected representatives of the colony afterwards were all autochthonous
and remained male. The question of a citizen’s identification, that is the
distinction between national and foreigner, however, became central for
the maintenance of the colonial situation, particularly because three referendums in 20 years were held regarding the territory’s independence.
The French colonial administration had a difficult time in identifying
its nationals, confronted as it was by the uncertainty of boundaries, the
fluidity of identities, the mobility of the inhabitants, and the lack of civil
registration.79 From the evidence of the distinction between French and
Foreigners, administrators in charge of census lost themselves in taxonomies,
trying to identify individuals.80 As early as 1945, one event showed that the
question was unsolvable. After the Ethiopian consul complained about
being expelled from a stand forbidden to “indigenous” during a sport
meeting, a note explained that “Ethiopians are not indigenous but nationals
of a neighboring country.”81 It truly demonstrates the impossibility of an
objective distinction and the limit of assignation: there is no break between
the inhabitants of the CFS and those of Ethiopia, Somalia, or Yemen;
boundaries were not even negotiated at that time. Because it was impossible
to respect the formal criteria provided by law for the attribution of the
French nationality82 and all attempts to carry out objective description were
doomed to failure, the identification of nationals was finally a political
decision. Although the attribution of French citizenship was a judiciary
prerogative, it was in fact done by the administration by using administrative and hence often arbitrary procedures.83 To do so, it essentialized the
representations while continuing to make them evolve, always in the same
process of African discourses reinterpreted and reused.84
In 1951, an “Autochthonous inhabitants census commission” (Commission de recensement de la population autochtone du territoire) was created to
establish the “identity of French autochthonous citizens” who “will receive
an identity card.”85 Under cover of census, the scope was to distinguish
French from foreigners among the local inhabitants. The commission,
appointed with French worthies,86 examined only the files accepted by
Afars, Issas . . . and Djiboutians
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officials in charge of their reception. It had to identify lineage and attach
individuals to them. As before, assignation was done by applying a European filter to information provided by Africans. In the actual state of
research, we can only imagine the conditions in which the so-called
worthies proferred their advice, both in and outside the commission hearings. For the single town of Djibouti, this commission dealt with 15,009
files87 between 1951 and its end in 1955. It delivered 11,360 identity cards,
of which 4,468 were not claimed, and rejected 3,649 files (24.3 percent).88
The last years of the French presence in Djibouti were characterized by
the administration’s desperate attempts to find criteria allowing a “satisfactory” typology of inhabitants. The contradictions between a growing urban
population, the impossibility of freezing identities and genealogies, the
pressure of African leaders in favor of their clients, and the necessity of
maintaining the territory under French sovereignty were insurmountable.
Another element, after the creation of Somalia in 1960 and the “events”
preceding the first referendum in 1966−67,89 was the tendency to favor the
presence of Afars, defined as supporting the continued French presence, at
the expense of Somalis, who were supposed to favor independence.
All the rationalization failed; representations were decisive. In 1970−72
again, a “Population identification mission” (Mission d’identification de la population), operated by military personnel, created files for 120,000 inhabitants
older than 15 years of age.90 It operated by direct physical identification of the
inhabitants, without go-between, and tried to infer their nationality even if it
was not its official function since it was a judiciary prerogative. At the end of
the mission, its leader, the former General and representative of the CFS to
French Assemblée nationale (1951−56) Edmond Magendie, explained the patent ideological implications of this process:
It is not without a great relief that the mission’s head has acted that at the
end of the mission’s works, conducted objectively and without precon-
ceived ideas, . . . the assessment of the estimations here presented corroborates the results of the March 1967 referendum. By adding the Europeans
votes to those of Afars and Arabs, convinced supporters of French presence, the 60% of affirmative votes are found.91
The identification of Somalis with independence supporters is thus demonstrated and legitimated by the “scientific” study of the population. This note is
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Simon Imbert-Vier
exemplary of how over-determination of elements from local reality led to
ethnic essentialization while ignoring individual views and preferences.
Using Identities Today
Since Djiboutian independence, political equilibrium— established practically within the unique presidential party—is presented ethnically: for
instance the Prime Minister is always identified as Afar. If the police and
identity control system is maintained without break, legitimacy is sometimes recomposed92 to guarantee continuity of the political personnel and
its access to State resources.93
In the 1990s, an armed opposition movement identified itself with the
Afars; it is also because of their “Afar-ness,” making them dissident, that
northern civilian inhabitants have been exposed to the violence of governmental troops,94 necessarily Somali, during the “reconquest” of the territory
in 1994. This opposition movement remains loyal to the notion of the
Djiboutian nation: it claims to seek better national integration, not independence or the making of a “Great Afaria.”95 As a militant said in 1992: “We
don’t want to catch the Issas, just an equal share with them.”96 In 2001, the
movement tried to shed its “tribal connotation of ‘Afar rebellion,’”97 but its
leader Ahmed Dini continued to defend Afars interests when, in June 2002,
he denounced the creation of Arta’s district as “a political operation, an
economic operation and a tribal expansion operation for Issas’s profit.”98 In
2004, Mohamed Kadamy still asserted that “Afars have never been so put
out in this country.”99 The identity claim is used by political leaders to
mobilize supporters in order to legitimate access to State resources. Regular
denunciation of “tribalism” since the 1950s confirms a contrario the continuity of ethnic representations and the persistence of their usefulness in
political discourse.
Another application of identity categories occurred in 2003 with the
expulsion from Djiboutian territory of 80,000 refugees called “foreigners in
irregular situation,” nearly 15 percent of the country’s inhabitants.100 The
national, and not ethnic, identity was publicly invoked to justify the
expulsions, but the initial attribution of Djiboutian citizenship was determined on the basis of criteria elaborated during colonial times,101 since the
one who “is Djiboutian, with its minor children, is the person of age on 27
Afars, Issas . . . and Djiboutians
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137
June 1977, who, because of its birth in Republic of Djibouti, was French
within the laws then applicable upon the territory.”102 Under cover of
“modern” identities, the colonial categories are still mobilized.103
The examples presented in this article can help in understanding how some
Djiboutian identities have been made up, modified and used. Born in the
confrontation between African descriptions and European interpretations, they
finish in political conflicts. Indeed, the evolution of identifications proposed
since the nineteenth century is mobilized today in individual relations and
political allegiances.
Besides the resources they represent for individuals, identities have been
used by political regimes for they own needs.104 At the creation of an indepen-
dent state around the Gulf of Tadjoura in 1977, contradictions were sustained
by the continuity of representations and categories.105 Although the nation-
building project would like to create a Djiboutian identity, djiboutienneté,106
and despite the crystallization produced by administrative practice, ethnical
identities are today still essentialized, used, adapted, recomposed and manipulated according to concrete situations and actors’ needs.
PUBLISHED NARRATIVES, IN ORDER OF TRAVELS
Isenberg, Karl Wilhelm and Krapf, Ludwig, Journals (London: Frank Cass & Co.,
1968).
Rochet d’Héricourt, C. F. Xavier, Voyage sur la côte orientale de la mer Rouge, dans
le pays d’Adel et le Royaume de Choa (Paris: Arthus Bertrand, 1841).
Harris, W. Cornwallis, The Highlands of Æthiopia, Described During Eighteen Months’
Residence of a British Embassy at the Christian Court of Shoa, 3 vols. (London:
Brown Green and Longman 1844).
Kirk, R., “Report on the Route from Tadjoura to Ankobar, Traveled by the Mission
to Shwá, under Charge of Captain W. C. Harris, Engineers, 1841 (Close of
the Dry Season),” Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, 12
(1842): 221–38.
Johnston, Charles, Travels in Southern Abyssinia, Through the Country of Adal to the
Kingdom of Shoa, 2 vols. (London: J. Madden and Co., 1844; Westmead:
Gregg International, 1969).
Rochet d’Héricourt, C. F. Xavier, Second voyage sur les deux rives de la mer Rouge,
dans le pays des Adels et le Royaume de Choa (Paris: Arthus Bertrand, 1846).
138
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Simon Imbert-Vier
Cecchi, Antonio, Da Zeila alle frontiere del Caffa, 3 vols. (Roma: Società Geografica
Italiana, 1886).
Soleillet, Paul, Obock, le Choa, le Kaffa. Récit d’une exploration commerciale en
Ethiopie (Paris: Dreyfous, s.d. 1886).
Antonelli, Pietro, “Il mio viaggio da Assab allo Scioa,” Bolletino della Società
geografica italiana (1883): 857– 80.
Dulio, Emilio, “Dalla baia di Assab allo Scioa per l’Aussa,” Cosmos (1886 –1888):
102–18, 163–72, 272–78, 283–356.
Borelli, Jules, Ethiopie méridionale, journal de mon voyage aux pays Amhara, Oromo
et Sidama (Paris: Ancienne maison Quantin, 1890), gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/
12148/bpt6k104072f.
NOTES
Previous versions of this research have been presented at the 7th Iberian Congress
of African Studies of 2010 in a panel organized by Itziar Ruiz-Gimenez and Alexandra Dias and at a CEMAf seminar at Aix-en-Provence in 2012. I would like to thank
the participants, Pierre Guidi and the anonymous referee for their remarks, and Damien Joron, James De Lorenzi, and Lee Cassanelli for their help in translating the text
to English.
1. French Territory of Afars and Issas. This result was contested because of
the numerous instances of fraud organized by the administration. The
repression of consecutive riots caused 31 deaths among the inhabitants.
More than 4,000 persons were expelled from the territory. Vote
manipulation remains constant in Djibouti. According to Roland Marchal:
“Elections in Djibouti have been without much surprise since
independence. . . . The greater the distance from the capital city, the
higher the electoral participation and the support for the president.”
Marchal, Roland, “Djibouti (Vol 2),” Africa Yearbook, ed. Andreas Mehler,
Henning Melber, Klaas van Walraven (Brill Online, 2011)
http://www.brillonline.nl/subscriber/entry?entry=ayb_ayb2005-COM-0032
(accessed 25 July 2011).
2. “Dans le but de faire disparaître dès le premier jour de l’Indépendance
toute trace de tribalisme et tout danger de division ethnique, les
responsables du nouvel Etat ont emprunté à la capitale du pays . . . le nom
Afars, Issas . . . and Djiboutians
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139
prestigieux de Djibouti pour le donner à la République.” Mohamed Aden,
Sombloloho Djibouti - La Chute du président Ali Aref (1975–1976)
(Paris-Montréal: L’Harmattan, 1999), 12.
3. On the political process leading to independence, see Fantu Agonafer,
Djibouti’s Three-Front Struggle for Independence: 1967–77 (PhD diss.,
University of Denver, 1979); Philippe Oberlé; Pierre Hugot, Histoire de
Djibouti - Des origines à la République (Paris, Dakar: Présence Africaine,
1985, 1996); Ali Coubba, Le mal djiboutien: rivalités ethniques et enjeux
politiques (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1995).
4. For a more detailed analysis of the colonial situation at independence time,
see Simon Imbert-Vier, “Après l’Empire: Violences institutionnelles dans le
Djibouti colonial tardif,” French Colonial History 13 (2012): 91–110. On the
Barrage’s history and stakes, see Simon Imbert-Vier, “Il Barrage di Gibuti,
frontiera inutile o fucina sociale,” Storia urbana 128 (2010): 109−27.
5. For the first referendum about independence, on 28 September 1958, the
Vice-President of the territory’s Conseil de gouvernement and deputy at the
French National Assembly, Mahmoud Harbi, appealed to reject the
maintenance of French presence. Despite vote’s manipulation, the “yes”
officially only gathered 75 percent of votes, the lowest result in the whole
Union française except Sekou Toure’s Guinea. The territorial Assembly was
then dissolved. Mahmoud Harbi died in 1960.
6. Somalia was ideologically built upon the project of uniting all “Somalis” in
the “Greater Somalia,” proposed by Lord Bevin in 1946. Its Constitution set
the scope of “reunification” of “five Somalias” symbolized by the five
points of its flag’s star, that is the incorporation of French Somaliland,
Ethiopian Ogaden, and Kenya’s Northern District.
7. In 1967, Afars replaced all Somali dockers (mostly Issaqs), who took the
places of Arabs in 1957.
8. Simon Imbert-Vier, Tracer des frontières à Djibouti. Des territoires et des
hommes aux XIXe et XXe siècles (Paris: Karthala, 2011), 101−24.
9. Imbert-Vier, Tracer des frontières à Djibouti, Chapter 4.
10. From an Arabic name, plural of Dankali.
11. Great grandson of an important merchant who is the last “pacha” of Zeila
under Egyptian rule (Abu Bekr) and grandson of the first “bey” of the town
if Djibouti (Burhan), he is part of the family of the Afar “sultan” of
Tadjoura. He was Vice-President of the CFS Governmental Council from
1960 to 1966 and Head of the TFAI Government from 1967 to 1976.
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12. However, many other “ethnic” identities are claimed by Djibouti’s
inhabitants: Somalis like Issaq or Gadabursi, but also Arabic, Oromo,
Ethiopian orthodox, French, Corsican, etc. See Absieh Omar Warsama and
Maurice Botbol, “Djibouti: les institutions politiques et militaries,” La Lettre
de l’océan Indien (1986): 12−15.
13. In an encounter in August 2007, Abdallah D., whose mother and language
are Somali, still defines himself as Afar and opponent in the same time.
14. Fredrik Barth, dir., Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: the Social Organization of
Culture Difference (Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, London: George Allen &
Uwin, 1969); Jocelyne Streiff-Fénart and Philippe Poutignat, Théories de
l’ethnicité (Paris: PUF, Le Sociologue, 1995, 1999).
15. For instance, about “Somali Bantus,” see Lee V. Cassanelli, “Social
Construction of the Somali Frontier: Bantu Former Slave Communities in
the Nineteeth Century,” in The African Frontier: the Reproduction of
Traditional African Society, ed. Igor Kopytoff (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1987), 216−38; Ken Mankhaus, “The Question of
Ethnicity in Somali Studies. The Case of Somali Bantu Identity,” in Milk
and Peace, Drought and War. Somali Culture, Society and Politics, ed. Markus
Hoehne and Virginia Luling (London: Hurst and Company, 2010),
87−104.
16. On this point, I refer to the foundation work: Jean-Loup Amselle and Elikia
M’Bokolo, ed., Au cœur de l’ethnie (Paris: La Découverte, 1985, 1999).
17. “les différents groupes s’enchevêtrent et les diverses dénominations se
superposent souent les unes aux autres pour s’appliquer aux mêmes
individus.” Robert Ferry, “Groupes de descendance et groupes territoriaux
en pays Afar,” in Actes de la Xe Conférence des Études Éthiopiennes, ed.
Claude Lepage (Paris: SFEE, 1994), 465−75. As a military man, Robert
Ferry had been a few times in CFS. In the 1950s, he worked there for the
SDECE (intelligence service). He was also involved in the Mission
d’identification at the beginning of the 1970s.
18. Gérard Noiriel, “L’identification des citoyens. Naissance de l’état civil
républicain,” Genèses 13 (1993): 3−28.
19. Isabelle Grangaud and Nicolas Michel, dir., “L’identification, des origines
de l’islam au XIXe siècle,” Revue des mondes musulmans et de la
Méditerranée 127 (2010), remmm.revues.org/6548.
20. François-Xavier Fauvelle-Aymar Histoire de l’Afrique du Sud (Paris: Seuil,
coll. L’Univers historique, 2006), 65, 100.
Afars, Issas . . . and Djiboutians
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141
21. Charles Tilly writes: “category formation is itself a crucial political process.
Category formation creates identities.” See his The Politics of Collective
Violence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 29. For
Jean-François Bayart, L’État en Afrique (Paris: Fayard, 1989, 2006), 15, 84,
ethnicity doesn’t help in understanding political constructs in Africa, it “is
only a scope amongst other of social and political conflict” [un cadre
parmi d’autres de la lutte sociale et politique]. For a study of a similar
process in a nearby context, see Uoldelul Chelati Dirar, “Colonialism and
the Construction of National Identities: The Case of Eritrea,” Journal of
Eastern African Studies 1, no. 2 (2007): 256−76.
22. European discourses about Djibouti were studied by Jean-Pierre Diehl, Le
regard colonial (Paris: Régine Desforges, 1986) and Marie-Christine Aubry,
Djibouti l’ignoré, récits de voyages (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1988). A first
analysis of the francophone Djiboutian literature about the colonial
situation is proposed by Abdourahman Yacin Ahmed, “Djibouti au centre
du discours littéraire,” in Djibouti contemporain, ed. Amina Saïd Chiré
(Paris: Karthala, 2013), 317−48.
23. Pierre L. van den Berghe, State Violence and Ethnicity (Boulder: University
Press of Colorado, 1990), 3, 9, suggests that modern States are using
administrative and industrial coercive means to “accentuate the disparity
of power between the state and its citizenry” with the scope of “nation
killing” ethnic groups.
24. The list of these publications is above. Richard Burton entered Harar from
Zeila in 1854−55, but he used a southern road far from the Gulf of
Tadjoura. See Richard Burton, First Footsteps in East Africa or an Exploration
of Harar (London: Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1856).
25. “géographie de conquête.” See Isabelle Surun, Géographies de l’exploration La carte, le terrain et le texte (Afrique occidentale, 1780-1880) (EHESS, PhD
diss., 2003), 577.
26. It was the Shewa administrative limit up to its disappearance in 1992.
27. His cotraveler, Krapf, translated the Bible in Oromo in 1875.
28. Johnston also evokes the practice of “women hiring” during those halts.
29. Even if those texts do not evoke double translations, first from a European
language to Arabic, then from Arabic to a vernacular language, one can
guess its existence.
30. Regarding the political situation in the “Afar area” in nineteenth century,
see Didier Morin, Dictionnaire historique afar (1288 –1982) (Paris: Karthala,
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Simon Imbert-Vier
2004) and Aramis Houmed Soulé, Deux vies dans l’histoire de la Corne de
l’Afrique: Mahamad Hanfare (1861–1902) et Ali Mirah Hanfare (1944),
Sultans Afars (Addis Abeba: CFEE, 2005, 2012), who don’t interrogate the
category afar. For more recent time up to independence, see Kassim
Shehim and James Searing, “Djibouti and the Question of Afar
Nationalism,” African Affairs 79, no. 315 (1980): 209−26. For Somalis,
the analysis is renewed in Markus Hoehne and Virginia Luling ed., Milk
and Peace, and Lidwien Kapteijns, “I. M. Lewis and Somali Clanship: A
Critique,” Northeast African Studies 11, no. 1 (2010): 1−23.
31. Isenberg and Krapf, Journals, 41, 53.
32. “ce besoin réciproque maintient ordinairement la bonne harmonie entre
ces deux grandes tribus,” Rochet d’Héricourt, Voyage sur la côte orientale de
la mer Rouge, 80.
33. “les Bédouins de la kabile du ras Bidar sont un mélange de Débenets,
d’Asouba, d’Hasen-Maras,” Rochet d’Héricourt, Voyage sur la côte orientale
de la mer Rouge, 114.
34. “des Asoubas, des Débenets et des Hasen-Maras sont mêlés aux Takahides
proprement dits,” Rochet d’Héricourt, Voyage sur la côte orientale de la mer
Rouge, 115.
35. “tous les habitants du royaume d’Adel parlent le même dialecte . . . : cette
communauté de langage est le principal lien de leur nationalité,” Rochet
d’Héricourt, Voyage sur la côte orientale de la mer Rouge, 118.
36. “les Harraris appartiennent à la race des Saumalis,” Rochet d’Héricourt,
Second voyage sur les deux rives de la mer Rouge, 262.
37. Harris, The Highlands of Æthiopia, 180.
38. About Abu Bekr, see Marc Fontrier, Abou-Bakr Ibrahim, Pacha de Zeyla Marchand d’esclaves (Paris: Aresae, L’Harmattan, 2003) and note 11 supra.
39. Harris, The Highlands of Æthiopia, 31.
40. Harris, The Highlands of Æthiopia, 151.
41. Harris, The Highlands of Æthiopia, 177.
42. Johnston, Travels in Southern Abyssinia, 12.
43. Johnston, Travels in Southern Abyssinia, 108.
44. Johnston, Travels in Southern Abyssinia, 240.
45. Johnston, Travels in Southern Abyssinia, 322.
46. Johnston, Travels in Southern Abyssinia, 13.
Afars, Issas . . . and Djiboutians
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143
47. Igor Kopytoff, “The Internal African Frontier: the Making of African
Political Culture,” The African Frontier, 3−84.
48. After Rubattino bought Assab in 1880, the harbor was occupied by Italy in
1882. In Obock, where some French traders were installed since 1881, a
coal deposit and a colony were created in 1884. The United Kingdom sent
a representative to Zeila in 1885 and declared a protectorate in 1887.
49. Borelli signals he tried to familiarize himself with amharigna.
50. Besides his journey narrative Da Zeila, Antonio Cecchi published two
“ethnographic” articles: “Le popolazioni della regione di Assab. I Danakili
(Afar),” Nuova antologia rivista di scienze, lettere e arti, Roma, anno 20, 2e
seria, vol. 49 (della racolta v. 79), fasc. 1 (1885): 523−32; and “Le
popolazioni della regione di Assab. I Somali,” Nuova antologia rivista di
scienze, lettere e arti, Roma, anno 20, 2e seria, vol. 53 (della racolta v. 83),
fasc. 17 (1885): 281−93. In 1877, he participated in an expedition headed
by Sebastiano Martini and financed by the Società geografica italiana.
51. “in tre grandi tribù, chiamate: Haber-Gerhais, Haber-Aual e Haber-el-Jalec
... tutti figli di Ishac,” Cecchi, Da Zeila alle frontiere del Caffa, 39.
52. “Assaiamarà pure sangue.” Cecchi, Da Zeila alle frontiere del Caffa, 98.
53. Cecchi, Da Zeila alle frontiere del Caffa, 102.
54. “Le sultan de Reitta . . . est allié des sultans de Tadjoura et de Loïta et
ces trois sultans sont feudataires de Mohammad Hanfalé, sultan de
Haoussa,” Soleillet, Une exploration commerciale en Ethiopie, 3.
55. “deux grandes tribus afars indépendantes et sauvages parmi les sauvages,”
Soleillet, Une exploration commerciale en Ethiopie, 60.
56. Soleillet, Récit d’une exploration commerciale en Éthiopie, 65.
57. “les Issah-Somali et les Danakil sont en guerre”; “la route pratiquée avant
l’affermissement des Français à Obock,” Borelli, Ethiopie méridionale, 3.
58. Borelli, Éthiopie méridionale, 14.
59. “l’autorité qu’Abou-Bakr exerce sur les Issah-Somali est réelle; elle se
comprend mal quand on sait que cet homme est Dankali,” Borelli, Ethiopie
méridionale, 8.
60. Aix-en-Provence, ANOM, CFS, 3F2 Circulaire 12 December 1939.
61. “maintenant connus dans leurs grandes lignes,” Circulaire 12 December
1939.
62. “Because of the difficulty of distinguishing French Issas from Italians ones,
all ‘sub-groups’ having representatives on our territory will be included in
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Simon Imbert-Vier
the census” “En raison de la difficulté de discriminer les Issas français des
Issas italiens, toutes les sous-fractions qui ont des représentants sur notre
territoire seront recensées intégralement,” Circulaire 12 December 1939.
63. “devra être ajourné dans les cas où il pourrait amener des incidents,”
Circulaire 12 December 1939.
64. “par renseignements demandés aux notables compétents,” Circulaire 12
December 1939.
65. “un nouveau stade de notre emprise sur les populations,” “facilités . . . aux
points de vue de la situation politique et de la sécurité,” Circulaire 12
December 1939.
66. Hubert Deschamps finished his career as professor in African History at the
Sorbonne University in Paris. He theorized principles of colonial
administration, see Hubert Deschamp, “Et maintenant, lord Lugard?”
Africa: Journal of the International African Institute 33, no. 4 (1963):
293−306.
67. Georges Balandier “La situation coloniale: approche théorique,” Cahiers
internationaux de Sociologie. 11 (1951): 44−79, completed in Sociologie
actuelle de l’Afrique Noire (Paris: PUF, 1955, 1963). See also Maxime
Rodinson, “Israël, fait colonial?” Les Temps modernes 253 (1967): 17−88.
68. Édouard Chedeville, born in 1905, after studying in Saint-Cyr high military
school, was sent to Tunisia, AOF, Mauritania, and Morocco, then CFS from
1938 to 1943. Prosecuted for murders committed during the war, he was
finally discharged in 1950. He was appointed as Afar language teacher in
1967−69 by the École nationale des langues orientales vivantes (actually
Inalco) in Paris.
69. A copy of 1960, in four volumes corrected in 1970, can be found in ANOM
(fonds privés, Papiers Bertin PA 351). There is also a version “developed”
in 1966 together with a 1965 “Fractionnement des Issa, Issack,
Gadaboursi” (ANOM, fonds privés, Papiers Ferry, 49 PA).
70. “It was enough in order to constitute voters lists, to update this census and
to deduce the list of living individuals of more than 21 years” “Il a suffit,
pour obtenir les listes électorales de mettre à jour ce recensement et d’en
tirer la liste des individus vivants ayant plus de 21 ans.” Fontainebleau,
CAC, 940163/78, report of the election control commission, 19 March
1967.
71. It was suppressed in 1949 with the creation of the “franc Djibouti.”
Afars, Issas . . . and Djiboutians
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145
72. “Indigenous are more affable since they have mostly been registered into
census” “Les indigènes sont d’autant plus affables qu’ils se savent en
majeure partie recensés.” (ANOM, CFS, 1E5 et 1E6/1-5 Tadjoura,
“Rapports mensuel, journal de poste - 1930-1945,” report of February
1944).
73. “L’accomplissement des formalités de recensement vaut autorisation de
séjour . . . Ceux qui refusent de s’y plier ne sont pas “insoumis,” mais
l’accès de (sic) territoire doit leur être interdit.” (ANOM, CFS, 1E6/4-7
Tadjoura, “Correspondance 1944-1945,” letter from governor [23 August
1944]).
74. Called “Abar-Awal,” “Abar-Jallo,” “Abar-Yonis” . . . in the documents. The
same evolution is noticed with the delivering of identity cards. It is said
actually that Issa would be a subset of Dir, a Somali branch like Issaq
(Piguet [François] [1998], Des nomades entre la ville et le sable.
Sédentarisation dans la Corne de l’Afrique, Karthala/IUED, Paris).
75. The first mention I found is in a report from the administrator of
Tadjoura, dated January 1955 (ANOM, AE6/4-7, rapport du 4e
trimestre 1954).
76. Armed fights confronting French military and militia to inhabitants arose
up to the 1940s, with two paroxysms in 1935 and 1943.
77. From 1930 to 1939, the northern administrative area was called cercle des
Adal. According to an administrator, it is an “historic word used to
designate inhabitants of areas now forming the CFS” “mot historique qui
servait à désigner les populations établies sur les territoires qui forment
actuellement la Côte française des Somalis” (ANOM, 3G3,
“Correspondance 1923–1955,” letter from administrator Jourdain [16
December 1930]).
78. Colette Dubois and Jean-Dominique Pénel, Saïd Ali Coubèche, la passion
d’entreprendre: témoin du XXe siècle à Djibouti (Paris: Karthala, 2006),
59−64.
79. The indigenous registration office, created in CFS in 1935, was extended to
internal parts of the colony in 1951. About the creation of registration
office, see Gérard Noiriel “L’identification des citoyens.”
80. Administrators’ difficulties are well explained in a census Compte-rendu
d’exécution by the Djibouti commandant de cercle (P. Roser), 28/1/1957
(ANOM, CFS, 3F2).
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Simon Imbert-Vier
81. “les Ethiopiens ne sont pas des indigènes mais les ressortissants d’un pays
voisin.” AD Nantes, “Ambassade à Addis Abeba” B26, note of 16 February
1945.
82. To be considered as French native (i.e., by attribution), one must usually
prove its birth in CFS, eventually from parents themselves born there. The
absence of registry office makes these events impossible to demonstrate.
See Simon Imbert-Vier, Tracer des frontières à Djibouti, 322−29. For a
description of similar process in Gulf countries, see Claire Beaugrand,
“Émergence de la ‘nationalité’ et institutionnalisation des clivages sociaux
au Koweït et au Bahreïn,” Chroniques yéménites 14 (2007): 89−104.
83. In 1950, the FOM (Overseas) ministry noticed that “the difficulty we are
facing is that it is impossible for an administrative commission to
recognise or attribute French citizenship. To get round this obstacle, I
think we should not mention nationality and to suppose it every time an
attentive exam of the situation will let think it possessed” “la difficulté à
laquelle nous nous heurtons, c’est qu’il n’est pas possible à une commission
administrative de reconnaître ou d’attribuer la nationalité française. Pour
tourner cet obstacle, je crois qu’il conviendrait de ne pas faire mention de
la nationalité et de la supposer acquise, chaque fois que l’examen attentif
des cas particuliers justifiera une telle détermination.” (ANOM, CFS, 3F2,
letter to governor [23 December 1950]). An anonymous note, probably of
1951, explains that “all individuals registered, married, head of family of
whom all parents (ascents and descents) have their address in CFS did
receive ‘ipso facto’ an identity card. Their declaration of birth in Djibouti
has been presumed true, without any enquiry” “tous les individus recensés,
mariés, chefs de famille dont toute la famille (ascendant et descendants)
sont domiciliés en CFS ont ‘ipso facto’ reçu une carte d’identité. Leur
déclaration de naissance à Djibouti a été présumée exacte, sans aucune
enquête.” (ANOM, CFS, 4F2).
84. In 1966, H. Beaux, head of territorial affairs, details mode of a census: “We
check the belonging of tribes living actually on our territory to ethnic
groups and fractions considered by customary law and our previous
enquiries as only originating from CFS. . . . We will be able, at the end of
those operations, to know with a great estimate [sic] the exact number of
the local population and specially the one of inhabitants originating from
the territory” “On vérifie l’appartenance des tribus résidant
Afars, Issas . . . and Djiboutians
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147
momentanément sur notre territoire aux ethnies et aux fractions
considérées par la coutume et par nos enquêtes antérieures comme seules
originaires de la Côte française des Somalis. . . . Nous serons en mesure, au
terme de ces opérations, de connaître avec une très grande approximation
(sic) le chiffre de la population locale et plus spécialement celui de la
population originaire du Territoire.” (ANOM, CFS, 13A1/3 [30 April
1966]).
85. “identité des autochtones citoyens français ( . . . qui) recevront une carte
d’identité.” Local decision no. 49, 17 January 1951, JO CFS. The concept
of autochthonous citizen (citoyen autochtone) doesn’t exist legally.
86. “deux issas, deux danakils, un gadaboursi, un abéraoual et deux arabes”
for Djibouti, “two worthies took into the concerned fraction” “deux
notables pris dans la fraction recensée” for the rest of the territory.
87. There were less than 40,000 inhabitants in the town of Djibouti circa 1950.
88. ANOM, 3F2 Démographie.
89. After the exhibition of banderole claiming for independence during a stay
of General de Gaulle in August 1966, the territory entered in a cycle of
demonstration-repression, causing numerous deaths. A new wave of
demonstrations and repression followed the rejection of independence by a
referendum in March 1967. The administration carried out many
expulsions, then built a barrage around the Djibouti’s town, officially to
control migrations.
90. These files are still used actually by the Djiboutian authorities.
91. “Ce n’est pas sans un profond soulagement que le chef de mission a pris
acte du fait qu’au terme des travaux de la mission conduits en toute
objectivité et sans idée préconçue . . . le bilan des estimations présentées
ici corrobore les résultats du Référendum de mars 1967. En apportant en
effet l’appoint des suffrages européens à ceux des Afars et des Arabes,
partisans convaincus de la présence française, les 60% de réponses
affirmatives se retrouvent,” Rapport Magendie (16 February 973), 14,
note 1 (copies of this text can be consulted in ANOM, PA 351; ANOM
Contrôle 1270; CAC 940163/28 and 940163/78). See also the same
analysis in Robert Tholomier, under the pseudonym of Robert Saint-Véran,
A Djibouti, avec les Afars et les Issas (Cagnes-sur-mer: Tholomier, 1977): 41.
92. Between the vote of independence in June 1977, and the first elections in
1981, the number of registered voters diminish by 8 percent (from
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Simon Imbert-Vier
105,952 to 97,964 according Ali Coubba, Le mal djiboutien). On that
matter, see also Simon Imbert-Vier, Il Barrage di Gibuti.
93. For Abdourahman Yacin Ahmed, with a reference especially to the novels
of Abdourahman Ali Waberi, “Institutionalization of tribalism creates a
competition between ethnic groups inside the State. Clans perceive the
State as a stake between them and a sharing place where everybody tries
to obtain the most important share of the cake. . . . The government
making of respects this ‘tribal equilibrium’. . . . Every ethnic group gets a
representative in the government” “L’institutionnalisation du tribalisme
instaure une compétition entre les ethnies au sein de l’État. Les clans
perçoivent en effet l’État comme un enjeu entre eux et un lieu de partage
où chacun cherche à obtenir la plus importante part du gâteau. . . . La
constitution du gouvernement respecte cet ‘équilibre tribal’. . . . Chaque
ethnie a un représentant dans le gouvernement” (“Djibouti au centre du
discours littéraire,” in Djibouti contemporain, 332).
94. According Le Monde (5 March 1994), the opposition denounced rapes, the
execution of 176 civilians, and massive transfer of inhabitants.
95. According Youssif Yacine, “program of no Afar political organisation
mentions the Great Afaria idea” “aucun programme des organisations
politiques afar ne mentionne l’idée de grande Afarie.” Dernières Nouvelles
d’Addis 27 (1-3/2002).
96. “Nous ne voulons pas chasser les Issas, mais avoir la même part qu’eux].”
Jean Hélène, “Djibouti: la guerre en pays afar,” Le Monde (29/1/1992). The
Front pour la restauration de l’unité et la démocratie (Frud) launch an armed
insurrection in November 1991. It controlled most of Northern and Western
part of the country up to a governmental counter-offensive in July 1993.
97. Interview of Ahmed Dini, Dernières Nouvelles d’Addis 27 (1-3/2002).
98. [une opération politique, une opération économique et une opération
d’expansion territoriale tribale, au bénéfice des Issas], interview of Ahmed
Dini, Dernières Nouvelles d’Addis 30 (7-9/2002). An analysis of the
contemporary relation between Afars and Issas, particularly in Ethiopia,
can be found in Yasin Mohamed Yasin, “Trans-Border Political Alliance in
the Horn of Africa: the Case of the Afar-Issa Conflict,” in Borders &
Bordelands as Resources in the Horn of Africa, ed. Dereje Feyissa and Markus
Virgil Hoehne (London: James Currey, 2010), 85−96.
99. “les Afars n’ont jamais été autant marginalisés dans ce pays.” Dernières
Nouvelles d’Addis 41 (5-7/2004).
Afars, Issas . . . and Djiboutians
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149
100. Dernières Nouvelles d’Addis, no. 37 (9-11/2003); Le Monde (17/9/2003).
101. About French citizenship in colonial situation, see Yerri Urban, L’indigène
dans le droit colonial français 1865–1955 (Paris: Fondation Varenne,
2011).
102. “est djiboutien, ainsi que ses enfants mineurs, l’individu majeur, au 27
juin 1977 qui, par suite de sa naissance en République de Djibouti, était
français au sens des lois encore en vigueur sur le territoire.” art. 5 of the
“Loi portant code de la nationalité djiboutienne,” no. 200/AN/81
(10/24/1981), www.presidence.dj/datasite/jo/1981/loi200an81.htm
(accessed 15 May 2010). This rule is modified in 2004 by the law no.
79/AN/04 (10/24/2004), www.presidence.dj/datasite/jo/2004/
loi79an04.php (accessed 17 May 2010).
103. “The sovereign power of the Djiboutian state through the nationality law
allows the marginalization of citizens. In Djibouti graduated citizenship
emerges both from the practice of ethnic discrimination and also as a
result of the nationality law. But these two elements should not be
viewed as separate, as they overlap considerably,” Samson A. Bezabeh,
“Citizenship and the logic of sovereignty in Djibouti,” African Affairs
110/441 (2011): 587−606.
104. In the 1960s, Somali nationalists described Afars as “Northern Somalis.”
For an Afar militant, “la seule chose que l’on peut rapprocher de la
notion ‘Afar’ est naturellement l’entité ‘Somali’” (Ali Coubba, Djibouti, une
nation en otage [Paris: L’Harmattan, 1993], 42). At the opposite, for Pierre
Oberlé, former French State employee in Djibouti, “un Issa ressemble
davantage à un Afar qu’à un Somali de Mogadiscio” (Philippe Oberlé and
Pierre Hugot, Histoire de Djibouti, 44).
105. Pierre L. van den Berghe, State Violence and Ethnicity, 11.
106. Ali Moussa Iye, Dernières Nouvelles d’Addis 37 (9-11/2003): 11.