Djibouti, the West’s Geostrategic Base in the Horn of Africa and the Gulf: Whither goes?

Posted on by Sloane Snodgrasse
Inter-ethnic relations, International Relations, National politics, Political geography, Regional History

Djibouti is a moderately populated mini-state in the turbulent Horn of Africa region§, it’s contiguous neighbours, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia (including Somaliland), are all countries which tend to experience ongoing conflict and instability, as is Yemen, less than 30km away by sea across the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Tiny Djibouti, comparatively, is open for business, and an oasis of stability, or so it seems to many interested foreign onlookers.

République de Djibouti 🇩🇯 Size 23,200 sq km. Pop (est. 2023) 976,000 (image: Pinterest)

Position A, geopolitically speaking: Djibouti’s attraction to the US and other Western powers and more recently, to China, is location. The tiny African republic’s prized geo-strategic location intersects the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, plumb in the middle of the vital shipping lane between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean, which caters for the transit of 20,000 ships annually and accounts for 30% of world trade [Bereketeab, Redie. “Djibouti: Strategic Location, an Asset or a Curse?” Journal of African Foreign Affairs 3, no. 1/2 (2016): 5–18. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26661713.]🇦

Bab el-Mandeb, oil containers (source: Morocco World News)

Watching the “bad guys”, protecting the West’s interests: Since the 1991 Gulf War and especially since the 9/11 Twin Towers terrorist attack, Djibouti’s importance to the military and security objectives of the US and other world powers has grown exponentially. The imperatives of the “War on Terror” and the upsurge in Somalia-based piracy turned Western eyes to Djibouti, situated ideally at the choke-point on the Suez to Indian waterway as the optimal spot to monitor activity in the Middle East and “the Horn” [‘Port in the Desert: Djibouti as International Lessor’, Jessica Borowicz, Aether: Journal of Strategic Airpower and Spacepower, Vol. 1, No. 3, Fall 2022, www.airuniversity.af.edu]. Today, foreign navies utilise Djibouti’s ports as part of the EU’s anti-piracy operations in the region, the US has a semipermanent base at Camp Lemonnier, with around 4,000 military personnel. France, Germany, Italian, Spain and Japan also maintain bases on Djibouti soil under Djibouti’s “rent-a-space program”. China opened its first base in the country in 2017.

Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti (photo: Facebook)

The rentier state – the Guelleh regime as “big bickies” landlord: Acting as lessor of foreign bases has proved a particularly lucrative earner for the Djibouti government, dominated by authoritarian president Ismaïl Omar Guelleh and his PRP🇧regime. Rents of the bases yield Djibouti an estimated US$119–128m per annum. As noted, “for a country that produces nothing, the income from the military bases has been a lifeline” (Bereketeab), turning round the dire economic prognosis facing the country in the early 1990s.

Ethiopian trade, mutual interest and port leases: An added windfall for the government is the revenues it collects from port leases (Djibouti has seven major ports and terminals). Landlocked Ethiopia is one of its customers, having lost its coastal territory after Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993. Ethiopia then became further dependent on Djibouti cooperation following the Eritrea-Ethiopia War (1998-2000). Ethiopia since this time has been required to lease port facilities from Djibouti, with 90% of total Ethiopian trade channelled through this route. With a shared major railroad and a shared water pipeline Djibouti’s relations with Ethiopia have generally been good (cf. those with Eritrea which have been less harmonious).

Doraleh Multi-Purpose Port (photo: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP via Getty Images)

Djibouti’s prized non-tangible resources: A third source of revenue for Djibouti is the development aid it receives from donor countries, especially the US, France, other European countries and China. All of this cash inflow (rents + aid + loans) amounts to Djibouti having the largest per capita income in the Horn of Africa region (according to the IMF’s reckonings)🇨and a healthy 6.5% annual economic growth rate (Bereketeab).

French foreign legionnaires in Djibouti (photo: Julien Hubert/Armee de Terre)

Djibouti, a stamping ground for the US, France…and the PRC: US military analysts by and large see Djibouti as the best current option in the region for staging military bases, an “anchor of stability in a volatile region” (Borowicz), with some observers even viewing Djibouti as a “front-line state” of America (Bereketeab), so its clearly happy to pay the high tenancy fees. France, with its “small but mighty force” on-site [‘Inside France’s Small But Mighty Force in Djibouti’, Frédéric Lert, Key.Aero, 01-Aug-2022, www.key.aero] and an involvement with the East African microstate that stretches back over 130 years, no doubt agrees.🇩 And the Guelleh regime is certainly happy with its cut of the deal…with China entering the scene, suggesting a potential new theatre for US v PRC rivalry, Guelleh can play one patron off against another for increasingly higher stakes, he has “agency” in the game, which J-P Cabestan defines simply as “the ability of any country to make independent decisions and strengthen its bargaining power” [CABESTAN, JEAN-PIERRE. “African Agency and Chinese Power: The Case of Djibouti.” South African Institute of International Affairs, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep29586.]

China’s Djibouti military base (source: adr1682305408 Thanh, Flickr)

Djibouti a haven of stability?: But is Djibouti really as stable a state as many in the Pentagon seems to believe? President Guelleh for now keeps a tight rein on things internally in Djibouti, effective opposition to the PRP has been neutralised,🇪but what of the future? Below the surface there are a raft of variables that might threaten the status quo. The great mass of Djiboutians have gained virtually nothing from the massive injection of money into Djibouti’s treasury which remains firmly in the hands of Guelleh and his fellow Somali subclan cronies in the political elite. Ordinary citizens wallow in various stages of poverty with unemployment conservatively estimated at 60% but really higher. Disenfranchised, predominantly illiterate, facing the ever-likely possibility of food shortages and drought, for the young Djiboutians a future with little prospects, the further erosion of basic rights and freedom of expression by an authoritarian regime, a combination of these factors might propel the unprivileged masses to demand a real improvement in their lot and failing that, ultimately regime change [EELCO KESSELS, TRACEY DURNER, and MATTHEW SCHWARTZ. “Front Matter.” Violent Extremism and Instability in the Greater Horn of Africa: An Examination of Drivers and Responses. Global Center on Cooperative Security, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep20264.1.]

Horn of Africa (map source: Nystrom Herff Jones Education Division)

Potential external destabilisers, a war-prone region and radical Islam: External factors could equally impact Djibouti’s stability, prompting a rethink by the lessees of the bases as a long-term option. Conflicts and civil wars emerging in Somalia, Eritrea or Ethiopia could spillover into Djibouti, eg, emanating from a sudden surge in refugee numbers.🇫 The affinity of Djibouti’s Issa Somalis and the Afars with their ethnic brothers and sisters respectively in Somalia and Eritrea could worsen this occurrence (Kessels et al).🇫It should also be remembered that Djibouti’s track record in avoiding conflict and violence is not a clean slate…in its relatively short existence the country has experienced civil war (1991-94) and a brief border conflict with Eritrea (2008), and the cause of the 1990s civil war—uneven power sharing by the Issa powerbrokers with the Afars—is an unresolved issue that continues to fester. A further threat of instability to Djibouti lies in the terrorist agenda of Al-Shabaab,🇬a jihadist fundamentalist organisation based in southern Somalia, which perpetrated a suicide bomber attack in Djibouti City in 2014 and has called on jihadists to target French and U.S. interests in Djibouti [Ahram Online (Egypt), 27-March-2021].

Djibouti women and children (source: aho.org)

A “Trojan Horse” for both sides? Maintaining full sovereignty amongst the mega-powers?: With both the US and China now heavily invested in Djibouti and each using it as a conduit to spread its geo-strategic influence, will an escalation of neo-Cold War rivalry played out here upset the balance in Djibouti? While foreign military forces being based indefinitely on Djibouti territory might provide reassurance to the country, there is a downside to Djibouti being completely dependent on big power external support and large foreign forces within its borders for it’s security and survival: Djibouti’s sovereign status as a free and independent nation is questionable…with a host of foreign patrons holding a significant share of the firmament the regime risks becoming compromised and losing support (Bereketeab). Most worrying (in US eyes) is the danger of Djibouti falling prey to “debt-trap diplomacy” due to it becoming over-dependent on China. Beijing is bankrolling many of Djibouti’s major infrastructure projects (water and gas pipelines, railroads, port upgrades, etc) big time! As a result, China has rapidly become the tiny African country’s major creditor (holding 91% of its external debt)(Borowicz; Cabestan). The upshot in the longer term is that the Guelleh PRP regime may end up being viewed by its own citizens as lacking legitimacy, a further pathway to internal turbulence and instability and enforced change.

Xi Zinping hosting Pres. Guelleh (“let’s do business!”) (photo: chinadaily.com.cn)

§ “Djibouti” in the native Afar language means “boiling pot”, an apt name for the country’s hot and arid, sub-tropical desert climate

🇦 around 6.2 million barrels of crude oil per day passed thru the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in 2018 (Borowicz)

🇧People’s Rally for Progress, which has provided both presidents of Djibouti since independence from France in 1977 – Guelleh, preceded by his elderly uncle, Hassan Gouled Aptidon

🇨in an impoverished “Horn” that is of itself not saying a lot

🇩to the tune of a hefty US$720m injection annually

🇪although opposition parties are now legal, all the political cards are stacked in PRP’s favour, opponents has been ruthlessly suppressed, driven into exile or co-opted into the ruling camp

🇪unfortunately it’s always on the cards that Yemen given its perpetual state of civil war could see upsurges in refugee numbers fleeing across the strait

🇫a revival of the earlier Somali “ethno-nationalism”—an attempt to unite all ethnic Somalis from the different East African countries into one Pan-Somali state—could also have a destabilising outcome

🇬Arabic: “The Youth”

Retribution, Incapacitation, Deterrence, Rehabilitation? The French Carceral Presence in Colonial Africa and Indochina

Posted on by Sloane Snodgrasse
Inter-ethnic relations, International Relations, Regional History

France’s 19th century colonial empire (sometimes called the “second French colonial empire”) properly dates from the French invasion and eventual conquest of Algeria, 1830-47) [‘French Colonial Empires’, The Latin Library, www.thelatinlibrary.com]. Following the failed 1848 Revolution—the Parisian uprising having been quashed by General Cavaignac—just 468 political prisoners were transported to Algeria, an initial, modest number which grew exponentially after Louis-Napoleon’s 1851 palace coup. Thousands of dissidents ended up detained in prisons and forts in Algeria’s and Bône (Annaba) [Sylvie Thénault. Algeria: On the Margins of French Punitive Space?. 2015. HAL Id: hal-02356523 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02356523] Translator: Christopher Mobley, web.colonialvoyages.org].

(Credit: ‘The Algerian Story’)

Bagnes d’Afrique◇
The system in French colonial Algeria worked thus: the worst politicals were kept in confinement, the rest were despatched to depot camps, these were disciplinary’ camps where the convicts were consigned to terracing and irrigation projects, building ports, fortifications and roads, working in mines and quarries, or to colony camps which were mobile building sites – mainly assigned to rural areas, notably to clear land. Convicts were subjected to “hard labour at exhausting pace in a naturally trying environment”※. Convicts singled out for punishment in the Algerian penal system were not treated with lenience. Violence perpetrated against them included ingeniously devilish variations on the infliction of pain and rigid constraint in confined spaces (Thénault).

(Image: www.timetoast.com)

Deportation, Algeria to Guyane and Nouvelle Calédonie
Residents of the colony committing offences against the law in French Algeria (which applied the same penal code as in Metropolitan France), could and were  sentenced to relégation (exile) to other colonies in the empire⍟. A number of the convicted in Algeria ended up in French Guiana and New Caledonia, sentenced to harsh work regimes. Some deportés to Cayenne (Guiana) who escaped penal servitude there, found their way back to Algeria and a resumption of their outlaw activism. This contrasted with New Caledonia where some of the Algerian exiles were able to form ties with the Caldoche, especially the transported Communards, and settle permanently in New Caledonia after serving their terms (Thénault).

The three-way movement of convicted insurrectionists—from metropole to colony, from colony to metropole, and from colony to colony—was part of a deliberate policy by France. It’s purpose was to move insurgents “from environments where they were troublesome and render them useful somewhere else”⍉ (see also PostScript). As Delnore notes, within several years, as needs changed, deportation “became formalised and largely unidirectional”. With not enough free settlers from the parent country willing to live in Algeria, increasing the deportees from France obviously numerically enhanced the overall French presence in the colony while providing cheap labour [Delnore, Allyson Jaye. “Empire by Example?: Deportees in France and Algeria and the Re-Making of a Modern Empire, 1846–1854.” French Politics, Culture & Society 33, no. 1 (2015): 33-54. Accessed November 9, 2020. http://jstor.org/stable/26378216].

⍋ Berberousse Prison (Algiers) (Image: vitaminedz.com)

The Indochine ‘bastille’
The French republic established and consolidated its colonial hold over the land of ‘Vietnam’ (then comprising three sectors, Tonkin – northern Vietnam, Annam – central Vietnam and Cochinchina (southern Vietnam, Cambodia), and gradually established a penitentiary system. In the south this included the Côn Dào islands (near Saigon), also known as the Poulo Condor(e) islands, a prison colony from 1862 to 1975. The first Con Dao prison (Phu Hai) on Con Son island was built in 1862 to house both political dissidents from Vietnam and Cambodia. Plantations and quarries were set up to utilise the labour of the growing prison population. According to Peter Zinoman, almost all senior Vietnamese communist leaders except Ho Chi Minh spent time in one of the Con Dao pénitentiaires. Corruption and opium addiction was rampant within the prison staff and inmates. The Con Dao prison colonies were taken over by the South Vietnamese government in 1954 and closed in 1975 after the communist victory [‘Con Dao: Vietnam’s Prison Paradise’, (Peter Ford), The Diplomat, 08-Mar-2018, web.thediplomat.com].

⍋ Con Dao Prison (Photo: asiaopentours.net)

The most famous French prison in the northern section of the country (Tonkin) was Hỏ Lò penal colony in Hanoi (commonly translated as “fiery furnace” or “Hell’s hole”), the French called it La Maison Centrale. It was built in the 1880s to hold Vietnamese political prisoners opposing the French colonists. During the Vietnam War, with tables turned, it was used to incarcerate American POWs who sarcastically referred to it as the “Hanoi Hilton”. Today it is a museum dedicated to the Vietnamese revolutionaries who were held in its cells, complete with an old French guillotine (the American section is a more sanitised part of the memorial bereft of any references to torture)  [‘Inside the Hanoi Hilton, North Vietnam’s Torture Chamber For American POWs’, (Hannah McKennett), ATI, 08-Oct-2019, www.allthatsinteresting.com].

In the Annam (central highlands) part of Indochina, the Buon Ma Thuot penitentiary was yet another of the French colonialists’ special jails with a “hell on earth” reputation, built for Vietnamese political prisoners. Buon Ma Thuot was located in a remote, hard-to-access area encircled by near-impenetrable jungle and inflicted with malarial water. The penal colony was also seen as something of a training school for Vietnamese patriots, many of the revolutionaries who took part in the August Revolution (1945) in Dak Lak against the French were at one time incarcerated here [‘Buon Ma Thuot Prison’,  http:en.skydoor.net/].

(Image: Cambridge Univ. Press)

Punitive over the disciplinary approach
The prison system in Indochine française did not “deploy disciplinary practices (such as the installation of) cellular and panoptic architecture”. Prisoners were housed in “undifferentiated⊞, overcrowded and unlit communal rooms”. “Disciplinary power” (in the Foucauldian sense) was not implemented in the Indochinese prisons…the coercion and mandatory labour dealt out was not aimed at rehabilitating or modifying or reforming the behaviour or character of inmates. Zinoman accounts for the discrepancy as an inability of colonial prison practice to adopt the prescribed theory of modern, metropolitan prison technologies at the time…this applied to French Indochina as equally it did to French Guiana (blight of bad record-keeping, incompetence management, personnel indiscipline/corruption), but he evidences other factors peculiar to Indochina – the persistence of local pre-colonial carceral traditions, the legacy of imperial conquest and the effects of colonial racism (“yellow criminality”) [Peter Zinoman, The Colonial Bastille: A History of Imprisonment in Vietnam 1862-1940, (2001)].

Endnote: Deportation v Transportation?
These two terms in relation to penal colonies tend to be used interchangeably. In regard to France, after 1854 the authorities made a semantic distinction between common law prisoners who were described as being ‘transported’ (the term borrowed from the British carceral usage), and political prisoners who were said to be ‘deported’ – in some cases to the same colonies (Delnore).

(‘Prisoners Exercising’ VW Van Gogh)

PostScript:Theory applied to the French imperial colony
French lawmakers and penologists in the 19th century tended to juggle two distinct but related rationales or approaches to the practice of deportation. One view, the penal colony as terre salvatrice (lit: “saving land”), held that deportation, having removed criminals from the “corrupting environment”, would through the discipline of hard work have a redemptive and healthy effect on them and permit their reintegration into French society. The second saw transportation to the overseas penitentiaire as the means for extracting the criminal element out of the ‘civilised’ society of the metropole, “separating France’s troublemakers from the rest of the population” (Delnore).

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◇ Algeria was the main African country where French penitentiaries were established but not the only one. France had other, smaller penal colonies on the continent, such as in Obock (in modern Djibouti) and in Gabon

※ other convicts were assigned to individual settlers and entrepreneurs to work mainly on private farms

⍟ some Muslim Algerians convicted in the colony were also sent to southern France and held under “administrative internment” – in part under the belief that incarcerating them in a Christian country might have a greater punitive impact on these criminals (Thénault)

⍉ there were French precedents for this – in 1800 Napoleon I deported Jacobin opponents to the Seychelles, and around the same time removed Black mutineers from French colonies in the West Indies and imprisoned them in mainland France and on Corsica (Delnore)

⊞ where both the accused and the convicted prisoners are indiscriminately detained together

⍒⍋⍒ ⍋