It’s hard to describe the Ogaden as a forest; there is too much sand. On the other hand, it’s difficult to call the Ogaden a desert; there are far too many trees.
Why it is so named is easier to explain. The region known as the Ogaden is the home of the Ogaden tribe of the Somali people. Within this tribe there are many clans and subclans, not all of whom like each other. Simmering rivalries and feuds lead to occasional outbreaks of mayhem and sometimes murder.
Another complication is that the Ogaden, despite being peopled with Somalis, is located within the present-day borders of Ethiopia. There is one thing on which the Somalis seem to agree–very few of them like being governed from Addis Ababa.
Somalia borders the Ogaden to the north and south. The ground rises from the south to the north. Wide, flat valleys are bordered by escarpments that range in height from a few hundred feet to as much as a thousand feet. On top of the rise awaits a plateau. Several prominent ranges rise far above the general landscape, from the 4,400-foot Dulamo Mountains in the west to the 11,100-foot Amhar Mountains in the north.
A colonial pen carved out this part of the Horn of Africa during the reign of the late Emperor Haile Selassie and decreed it to be the most easterly portion of Ethiopia. The Ogaden’s eastern border mimics almost the shape of the coast, a horn within a horn, a dagger pointing into the heart of Somalia.
In 1977 Somalia invaded Ethiopia to claim the Ogaden. The resulting bloody battles raged for two years, ending when Somalian forces were repelled by Ethiopian soldiers heavily backed by Cuban and Soviet troops and equipment.
Evidence of the fighting lingers in the hills overlooking the northern Ogaden town of Jijiga. The hulks of knocked-out Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers still point their guns toward the town below.
This October, for the first time in four years, the prayed-for autumnal monsoon season rains came as expected. Showers, however, are fickle, and although some areas have had much rain, other areas a short distance away have had none.
I can see this easily from above as I fly over the area from the United Nations base in Gode. Where some parts of the Ogaden look quite lush, other expanses are eroded and bereft of vegetation.
The nomadic Somali people, even at the best of times, live precariously in a land that does not give easily. They raise cattle, camels, sheep and goats. They live in temporary domed huts called tukuls, and have few possessions. If the rains come, they get by.
The village of Goudis is typical of the small villages of the Ogaden. Where the population would normally be around 200, now it’s in the thousands. The extra people are Somali nomads who have lost all their livestock, their very means of existence, to the drought.
The United Nations designates them as internally displaced persons. They are not refugees because, officially, refugees are seeking shelter in a country other than their own. The Somali refugees camp just outside the village boundaries. They depend upon handouts, mainly from the international community.
One of the elders told me that three months ago, before the aid arrived in sufficient amounts, upward of 30 people died each night.
As I landed the helicopter at Goudis, the villagers and refugees turned out of their flimsy little huts in force and surrounded the landing site. As soon as the boiling red dust cloud caused by our arrival subsided, the helicopter was quickly encircled, nearly engulfed. The World Food Program monitors I brought to the village went about their business, leaving me and my machine surrounded by the multitude.
At first the Somalis were shy, but they gradually pressed closer, to the point that I began seriously to worry about the helicopter, and I was at least as large an object of curiosity as the aircraft. My every move was the subject of intense scrutiny and comment.
Most villages in the Ogaden have a small army detachment nearby. The soldiers usually deploy and post some guards to keep crowds away from the aircraft. They use sticks and back up their orders with Kalashnikov rifles. There seems to be little love between these Amharic-speaking Christian Ethiopians from the northern highlands and their Ogaden-dwelling, Somali-speaking Muslim charges, so I employed the slightly kinder alternative of asking two village elders to stand guard with the cane that most men carry.
There is nothing like the threat of a lick from a whippy branch around the bare shins to get even the boldest onlooker’s attention. Abhorrent as it may be to Western sensibilities, the use of a stick to exercise authority is very common in this region.
These men were proud to be nominated and made mighty efforts to keep the crowd well away. But the game clearly has rules. The men poised for the strike, the victims fled in suitable haste, and the blow was timed so as to miss by a small margin.
The small boys, of which there were many, grouped together and dared each other to brave the swish of the guard’s cane and scamper close to the helicopter, counting coup by touching it.
I was waiting in the hot sun for several hours, but it did not seem to matter. The Somalis hunkered down in whatever shade was available, or sat in the sun and watched. They had little else to fill their day.
There are 12 hours between my UN-provided breakfast and the evening meal, but I don’t eat lunch anymore. I find that spending the greater part of the day surrounded by starving people takes the edge off my appetite. I carry a bottle of ice water in the helicopter and usually refuse offers of hospitality in the knowledge that those offering have little enough of their own.
On this particular day, while I was waiting for my passengers to return, a young man walked up carrying a flask of hot tea and a small cup of milk.
“This for you,” he said, “and I bring milk also.”
I attempted to decline, but it was clear that he would be offended. He was obviously proud that he had some milk to offer. I asked what kind of milk it was. I half-expected that it would be goat’s milk, or maybe even camel’s milk. He struggled with his English for a moment and then said, “It is milk of donkey.”
OK, I thought. Asses’ milk can’t be too bad. After all, Cleopatra used to bathe in it daily.
I drank the first cup of milky tea and had almost finished the obligatory second cup for politeness’ sake when he said, “No, I tell you wrong, not milk of donkey–milk of dog!”
