Sheba's Sons - Haile Selassie goes to Tokyo
- Thread starter Hagre
- Start date
I'm interested in what happens to southern Africa now that Mandela's dead. The French will probably be unable to maintain as much influence as they do IOTL in West Africa.
The Black Circle
The Black Circle
Excerpt from The Black Circle: A History of Negritudean Haiti by C.L.R. James
Haiti emerged from the Second World War an ascending Caribbean nation, ridding itself of the century of instability that followed independence in 1804. Despite its authoritarian nature, the HNU government maintained an administration which was absent of the traditional corruption and intrigues that characterized countless previous governments. The Haitian economy enjoyed an unprecedented economic growth that stemmed directly from the government's significant investments in infrastructure, exploiting what foundations the Americans left behind, and the Negro Factories Corporation's pre-war investments. Thanks to Garvey's personal fondness for those from the Caribbean and close relations with Garveyite Liberia, Haitian students were able to go abroad and receive an education in Monrovia while UNIA officials from America and Liberia alike came to Haiti to inaugurate its first schools where skilled labor was vital to its progress. By 1939, Haiti was rising out of the economic recessions that'd been standard procedure for long and with the quick pace of the infrastructure programs backed by the NFC, alongside other wealthy Caribbean businessmen, Haiti was starting to experience the benefits of a high annual economic growth rate that only grew with wartime American investments and de-facto Haitian neutrality.Excerpt from The Black Circle: A History of Negritudean Haiti by C.L.R. James
After World War II, Haiti experienced an unprecedented economic growth rate of 5% and the HNU government presided over one of the most stable, prosperous times in Haitian history. The Port-au-Prince Renaissance was set to go ahead, reflecting its counterpart in Harlem when Haiti experienced a similar outpouring of intellectual discussion centered on embracing the African aspects of Haitian culture and celebrating Haiti's African roots in addition to the New World Black diaspora's achievements. The emergence of large, organized urban settlements in Haiti by the late 1940s to early 1950s facilitated this development which centered at Port-au-Prince whose strategic position contributed to its growth and secured its position in the UNIA's Caribbean network. Indeed, the foundations for the integration of the West Indies were laid as early as 1920 with the assistance of the NFC's earlier enterprises with the Black Star Line. However, it came to a head with Price-Mars' death in 1946 and the question of who was to succeed the man who was the greatest leader in modern Haitian history, with many now fearing that Haiti would lapse into its praetorian traditions of corruption and ruthless authoritarianism but this was fortunately not to be.
The excessive purges of the Mulatto bourgeoisie, historically behind Haiti's national intrigues and coups, and their subsequent replacement with a loyal and exclusively Negro middle class was partly the reason behind this. Its steadfast loyalty to Price-Mars and common membership in the Haitian National Union Party ensured the investment of these middle class Negroes in the latter's maintenance. Another reason was the neutering of all Haitian military branches in the centralization program Price-Mars had begun, preventing any members of the military from serving in government and running for public offices but that'd also been partly halted when Mulattoes who constituted an overwhelmingly high percentage of the Haitian officer corps. Similarly to the members of Haiti's gradually growing middle class, the now overwhelmingly Negro officers had little interest in ousting the regime's leadership and often possessed party memberships that led to a semi-institutionalized system of patronage, though nothing to the extent of prior corruption. It wasn't long before the Haitian Senate elected a well-known man of notable political stature in the administrations of both Stenio Vincent and Jean Price-Mars to the Presidency in 1947 - Dumarsais Estimé.
Dumarsais Estimé proved a promising President who continued Price-Mars' legacy by embracing anti-elitist and anti-mulatto sentiments that remain so widespread even today. He showed concern for Haiti's working class as he pushed through social security legislature in the National Assembly, hoping to safeguard Haiti's industrial base and its workers. Estimé expanded the school system that was now staffed by educated Haitians, utilizing their vastly expanded pool to establish a school system completely independent of the UNIA officials who'd come to dominate in many areas that Port-au-Prince previously had. With the UNIA's banning from the USA in 1949 from its pro-Axis disposition and the disproportionate influence it possessed within Black America's ranks, particularly Black veterans [1] returning home, the Garveyite government in Monrovia was already withdrawing from that part of the New World in favor of consolidating in Africa. However, it would be the Garveyite institutions that the UNIA left behind in the region [2] that laid the foundations for Estimé's legacy in both Haiti and the Caribbean.
Although the idea of a pan-Caribbean polity had been proposed before, it wasn't until the 1950s that the idea started gaining traction in the British West Indies. Many HNU officials had discussed the possibility of having Haiti encompass not just Hispaniola but the West Indies like James T. Holly had advocated, it was often as an idea and little else. However, this was changing with the ramping up of Garveyist sentiments that came with demands for decolonization as was with the rest of the disintegrating British Empire by the mid- to late 1950s, particularly in Jamaica where Leonard Howell's Ethiopian Salvation Society was being led by Garveyist veterans from both the First and Second World War after the suppression of the Negro World newspaper [3] and by the British West Indies Regiment's veterans. Despite the HNU's interest in this prospect, Estimé was reluctant to endorse that idea for fear of further pissing off the USA who'd already looked upon Negritudean Haiti with alarm as a Garveyite state to its south and one that was proving hostile to its economic hegemony when Port-au-Prince made moves on reclaiming its sovereignty by nationalizing the Bank of Haiti or the economic concessions made to the Standard Fruit Company. However, the tide of West Indian nationalism was simply unstoppable.
The HNU had pursued a program of "Black Imperialism" that closely resembled Garvey's African Redemption concept [4] and made quite a few Haitians support the West Indian venture to at least promote a restoration of its former Hispaniola-based Imperium, though its Caribbean targets made some refer to it as "The Black Circle" in reference to the American South's proposed Golden Circle venture. Despite initial American fears about losing a strategic airbase in Chaguaramas, Port-au-Prince negotiated with Washington over the lease of Montego Bay in Jamaica as a military base but this caused friction within the HNU. Although Estimé had little love for American interventionism and Haiti possibly becoming an American client state once again, it was difficult to avoid acknowledging the pre-eminent status that the latter held. Not to mention, Haiti was in need of some foreign capital to keep funding those development projects and to many American businessmen, the Haitian market was apparently a lucrative one. Thus, it was with the inauguration of the West Indian Federation in January 1958 that Haitian relations with its northern neighbor started thawing and revenues from American investment flowed into the WIF which was desperately needed with the poor state of most of the islands with the exception of Jamaica.
Excerpt from A History of African Radicalism by Paul Gilroy
The Republic of Juwama arose out of the 1947 Juba Conference, consisting of the predominantly Animist-Christian Nilotic regions in southern Sudan. In contrast to Egypt's authoritarianism, Juwama's government resembled that of the British parliamentary system and it was in August 1948 that the people of Juwama elected their first government under Aggrey Jaden. With the Anyanya Party in power, Jaden faced the immense tasks of forming a cohesive nation from the various ethnic groups that made up the country and that was in addition to the threat that the Egyptians presented with alarmingly regular penetrations. Nonetheless, Jaden dedicated himself to this task and first started by finding a means of safeguarding Juwama's independence from Egyptian incursions, knowing of Nasser's desire to unify the Nile under Cairo's grasp and observing the resettlement of Egyptian Arabs in restive areas like Darfur. The Juwama National Armed Forces was established in June 1949 with the President commanding it and Jaden invited an Ethiopian Military Mission to help train the Juwama National Army that was simply 15,000 ill-trained and ill-equipped men levied from across the country.
This caused considerable tensions not just between Juba and Cairo but between Cairo and Addis Ababa as well. It didn't help that Cairo unsuccessfully supported restive nomads in Eritrea, Aussa and Ogaden with the hope of destabilizing Ethiopia enough to make it concede control of the Nile to Egypt. It did, however, serve to facilitate a closer relationship between Juwama and Ethiopia while providing to Juwama an outlet through Ethiopia who's access to the Red Sea allowed for arms scheduled to Juba to arrive via Ethiopia's southwestern Nilotic frontier with Juwama. Arms and advisors arrived from the USSR, courtesy of Stalin himself who looked to the Horn in the historical Russian imperialist lenses and saw the pro-Soviet Imru as being more pliable to Moscow's interests in stark contrast to the fervently anti-Communist Husayn, even though Imru was unwilling to unilaterally adopt an unequivocally Socialist state on the Soviet model. However, to Moscow, Juwama's landlocked status and Egyptian encroachment made it irresistible to Soviet wooing in spite of Jaden's open rejection of Communist ideology's tenets as something fundamentally opposed to the cultures and way of life that Juwama's people enjoyed. Opportunistic, Jaden agreed to accept Soviet help but looked more to Imru's Ethiopia and Boganda's Equatoria.
Jaden promoted a Juwaman identity by closely identifying it with a syncretic Christianity, similar to Negritudean Haiti, and Nilotic-centric nationalism to oppose the pan-Arab narrative espoused by Cairo. The Anyanya Party also espoused a pan-Africanist stance, though this was less a genuine belief in a united Africa fighting off foreign imperialism and more so a hope that the framework of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) could protect a surrounded Juwama from Egyptian irredentism. This often included an argument in religious terms - that Christian Sub-Saharan Africa should work against Muslim Arabia's moves to penetrate into its interior, particularly its foes of the Egyptian-dominated United Arab States which was showing Nasser's true stance on his alleged brothers to the south and Juba decried the atrocities carried by Egyptian settlers in northern Sudan. Araya, Emperor of Ethiopia, agreed with Jaden's narrative and this resistance against Arab imperialism was often praised across Ethiopia as Araya traveled to Juba to personally conclude a series of agreements. Jaden proposed an alliance of East Africa's Christian states against the UAS, something that only occurred with the formation of the East African Community in late 1966 and after Iraq's decision to join the UAS in 1959.
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[1] A radicalization process similar to that of their WWI counterparts is taking place. See Vanguards of the New Negro: African American Veterans and Post-World War I Racial Militancy by Chad L. Williams for more.
[2] See Garveyism and Labor Organization on the Caribbean Coast of Guatemala, 1920-1921 by Frederick Douglass Opie, Cross Currents in the Western Caribbean: Marcus Garvey and the UNIA in Central America by Ronald Harpelle and Garveyism in Haiti during the US Occupation by Brenda Gayle Plummer for more.
[3] See Suppression of the "Negro World" in the British West Indies by W. F. Elkins for more.
[4] See MARCUS GARVEY: A REAPPRAISAL by Wilson J. Moses for more.
Keep in mind that Haiti now has to deal with OTL's WIF's problems and how that might impact both Haiti and the Caribbean as a whole. Nonetheless, TTL's Haiti will be better off.
My Revolution
My Revolution
Excerpt from A History of African Radicalism by Paul Gilroy
Excerpt from A History of African Radicalism by Paul Gilroy
With his reelection in 1966, Patrice Lumumba sought to centralize the Congolese government and ensure its authority's enforcement across the country after the conclusion of hostilities. With this venture in mind, Lumumba faced considerable opposition from quite a few politicians who feared a repeat of Mobutu's overcentralization and his atrocities in Leopoldville. Thus, the Lumumba government was forced to concede quite a bit of power and influence to local government but this would not prevent it from cracking down on regionalist and ethnic nationalist/separatist sentiments to prevent a repeat of 1961. Ethnocentric parties were banned - much to the outrage of not an insignificant few - and subsequent protests were suppressed harshly as French became Congo's official lingua franca, just like Equatoria. With the issues of regional-ethnic separatism and federalism being resolved, a relatively content Lumumba turned to something he viewed of national importance - foreign, particularly Belgian, hegemony in vital sectors of the Congolese economy by the late 1960s. Negotiations were started up with the Belgian Mining Union who'd reaped massive profits from the Congo's vast array of natural resources and fiercely safeguarded Belgian interests in the Congo in response to what they saw as an upstart African Socialist.
After lengthy negotiations and foaming at the mouth from men like Gizenga, a frustrated Lumumba proclaimed the nationalization of the UMHK, though he kept on European workers with the aim of supplanting them with an engineer graduate class of Congolese origin and as teachers too. The revenues accumulated from the vital mining sector were transferred toward the MNC's grand infrastructure program that sought to connect the Congo all to the capital at Kinshasa as a means of strengthening the Congolese nation and an arduous effort was undertook to establish a nationwide railroad network combined with roads. This was bolstered by the rapid promotion of educated graduates a part of the new Congolese generation that came with Lumumba's significant investments in the Congo's education sector, more and more of them being educated at home as opposed to the initial option of sending bright Congolese students to friendly nations like Liberia and Equatoria or Francophone countries like France and Belgium who were desperate to preserve their rapidly crumbling influence in Africa. Although they had a long path in front of them, the Congolese government under Lumumba was a rising regional powerhouse to reckon with, as could be seen in Congolese support for Marxist rebels in former Portuguese Africa in the '70s.
Similarly to Lumumba, Jaden possessed disdain for both the Western and Eastern Blocs - in his eyes, neither were quite different in essence. In its stead, there was a move toward an alliance with Juwama's neighbors and it finally manifested in 1966 with the establishment of the Nairobi Pact that formed the East African Community. To contribute to this effort, Jaden turned to Boganda's Equatoria, whose Chadian frontier shared a border on the Egyptians' restive Sudanese holdings and shared Juba's anti-Arab sentiment, to propose an alliance on the same model of the Nairobi Pact against the Arab world. With Equatoria's northern border being threatened by Libyan incursion into the contested Aozou Strip since 1954 and Iraq's entrance into the nextdoor UAS in 1959, Boganda agreed to establish a common alliance with Juwama against what was viewed as Arab imperialism as Muammar Gaddafi rose to power in September 1969 after ousting King Idris I and inaugurated the Libyan Arab Republic which rapidly signed a number of pacts with the UAS. For all intents and purposes, it seemed that its northern neighbor was going to join the United Arab States prior to Nasser's death in September 1970 and the subsequent destabilization of the federation.
Nasser's intervention in and overcommitment to the Yemeni Civil War was said by many to have been the beginning of the end of the United Arab States. Wanting to exploit the instability that wracked Yemen in light of its Imam's death in September 1962, Nasser welcomed Muhammad al-Badr approaching him to have Yemen join the UAS even though this was a looser federal arrangement than anyone in Cairo would've liked. However, that was the same month in which al-Badr narrowly escaped Abdullah al-Sallal's men shelling the palace and his revolution that ushered in the Yemen Arab Republic, recognized firstly by Moscow. Nasser immediately exploited the situation by dispatching Egyptian advisors and a battalion of Egyptian Special Forces troops to cement al-Sallal's regime when it started facing resistance from royalist tribesmen inspired by al-Badr's survival and Saudi support against Nasserist encroachment. Support from Amman and London was also forthcoming, with the former fearing the fall of Jordan would naturally follow that of the Sauds and the latter fearing that the Egyptians would move on Aden. With mounting Jordanian, Saudi and Anglo-American opposition to Egypt's presence in Yemen, Nasser ordered the Egyptian General Staff to go on the offensive in February 1963.
The Ramadan Offensive was successful, securing the consolidation of Sallal's regime and pushed the Royalists into the Highlands. However, this provided the Royalists with the base to regroup and strike back against their Republican counterparts, resorting to hit-and-run guerrilla tactics as material support from abroad started trickling in. Alarmed at the Egyptian maneuvers and the tens of thousands of Egyptian soldiers in Yemen, Ethiopia almost immediately sent material to the Royalists and denounced the coup, refusing to recognize al-Sallal's regime as little else than an Egyptian puppet. Although Egyptian troops possessed a notable firepower advantage and better coordination, Ethiopian material aid helped bridge the gap for the Royalists who were also helped by the arrival of Ethiopian advisors and delivered a number of defeats to Egyptian forces at Jawf and Jihana. It's thus not surprising that Cairo started considering a more diplomatic approach with the onset of a ceasefire in November and started up negotiations in Alexandria with Prince Faisal of Saudi Arabia. The loss of 10,000 men in Yemen was proving unpopular domestically in Egypt and the conscription of men from Iraq and Yemen alike didn't help endear the war effort to what was an initially enthusiastic populace.
The Royalists launched their own offensive after repulsing several Egyptian assaults on the Razih mountains, amassing a not insignificant amount of men and material to thrust them all across the frontlines. The alliance of the Nahm tribe with the Royalists tricked the Egyptians into believing that they'd seize Wadi Humaidat, allowing the Royalists to attack from the Asfar-Ahmar mountains with Nahm reinforcements. The Egyptian forces at the mountain range sustained heavy casualties as Royalist forces brought up reinforcements and shifted the main site of fighting to Harf and Hazm under Prince Abdullah bin Hassan at Urush, leading to an encirclement of the 3,000-5,000 Egyptian troops whose supplies were running dry with sporadic aerial reinforcement. Royalist radio exploited this string of successes by promising an amnesty to any Republican after Egyptian withdrawal and also promised the establishment of a constitutional government elected democratically via a national assembly chosen by the Yemeni people. Despite 40,000 casualties, the Royalists could mobilize more men from its considerable support base amongst the tribes whose traditional leaders had been incensed at Sallal's refusal to integrate them into his revolutionary administration in stark contrast to that of the Yemeni Monarchy.
Soon enough, Egypt had accumulated a debt of $3 billion from the war effort in Yemen and supporting the Sallal regime that hadn't been helped with the recent Royalist successes. The presence of 60,000 Egyptian soldiers in Yemen was starting to show the financial difficulties that the United Arab States was experiencing, as it did the Egyptian hegemony in the federation. In the state that Sallal had created, Egyptians occupied the important positions in the state apparatus and Cairo's blatant attempts at enforcing direct Egyptian governance onto Yemen did nothing but hinder the war effort and do away with any chance at garnering popular favor. The Yemeni conflict was being seen as increasingly untenable and Nasser attempted to disengage Egypt from Yemen by leaving only 40,000 men in control of bases that stretched along its coastline and the border with Saudi Arabia as a means of preserving the pan-Arab cause but more so Egyptian influence in South Arabia. In stark contrast to their initial situation, the Royalists, by March 1966, possessed a sizable force of well-equipped veterans from a half-decade of warfare with Egyptian troops and could afford to successfully repulse the Egyptian offensive that month, though the Royalists were unable to launch a successful counterattack in spite of the stalemate.
Sallal's assassination by bazooka in October 1966 facilitated the destabilization of the Yemen Arab Republic and signified the declining trend of pan-Arab nationalism toward the late '60s. It was in September 1967 that he announced the recall of Egyptian forces from Yemen and left the affairs of Yemeni government to Abdul Rahman Yahya Al-Eryani. The withdrawal of Arab assistance to the Yemen Arab Republic and Siege of Sana'a in 1967 brought the downfall of the Republican regime when 56,000 Royalist soldiers, financed and equipped by Addis Ababa, seized Sana'a with 5,000 casualties caused by house-to-house fighting and Republican firepower. They had finally secured victory by February 1968 by ousting Al-Eryani's administration and reinstated the Monarchy whose centralization of government and professionalization of the military facilitated the modernization of Yemen as al-Badr delivered on his promise of providing the people of Yemen with proper democratic representation, particularly the tribes who'd been incensed at the lack of tribal representation in Sana'a. Rebuilding was bolstered by Saudi loans as infrastructure was set in place to connect the mountainous country together, cementing the centralization of Yemeni authority around the Monarchial government.
Egyptian hegemony was a point of contention not just with Yemen but with the Iraqis who were outraged at the attempts to impose direct government onto Iraq. Nasser's rampant involvement in domestic Iraqi affairs and pressure to facilitate more Iraqi involvement in the Egyptian intervention in Yemen only ensured Iraqi animosity toward Egypt, as did Nasser's moves toward centralizing further power under himself. Thus, Iraq's decisions to break away from the United Arab States in July 1968 under a Ba'athist regime, led by Ahmed Hassan al-Bakr and Saddam Hussein after purging Baghdad of Nasserist officers and administrators. Arif and Rashid Ali were killed in the midst of the July Revolution, seen as too willing to sell Iraq on a platter to Egyptian dominance as Sallal had done in Yemen and with that, the United Arab States disintegrated as Nasser tried to focus instead on African affairs. Cairo had done no favors for itself in Africa, particularly in East Africa where it was constantly at odds with Juwama and Ethiopia who were well aware of what the Egyptians were doing in Sudan. With these prevailing anti-Arab feelings spreading to Equatoria and the Monrovia Bloc, there was little love for Nasserist Egypt except with the impotent Eritrean Liberation Front and Siad Barre's Somali Democratic Republic.
Equatoria was home to said anti-Arab feelings, particularly with Gaddafist Libya's insistence on encroaching on the Aozou Strip and his blatant posturing of Soviet-equipped Libyan forces. Previously, conflict in Aozou was limited to small-scale skirmishing and raids between Libyan and Equatorian troops but Tombalbaye reported to Boganda that Gaddafi was building up his military to Chad's north. Alarmed, Boganda focused on expanding the Equatorian military from 50,000 men to 100,000 men as Gaddafi started supporting the National Liberation Front of Chad (FROLINAT) to operate in Aozou, seeing it as an avenue to secure rightful Libyan territories in Chad. With this, it seemed that Equatoria and Libya were fated to clash - and they were when Gaddafi escalated the conflict in August 1971.
They maintain fairly good relations but I will eventually do a chapter on East Asia after WWII and up until the last chapter. It’s a bit difficult to find what relations were like between OTL’s Ethiopia and Thailand but I’d imagine the similar courses of history both pursued would make for some good common ground to begin with.
There's definitely an increasing feeling of Pan-Africanist sentiment when faced against the Arabs but nothing that would warrant an African state.
I feel like this African Union you have in mind needs a POD far before 1900, particularly if you want it to be dominated by Ethiopia.
Right now in my TL, there’s a feeling of anti-Arab animosity and an extremely loose definition of an African identity as being concentrated south of the Maghreb as I believe someone pointed out earlier but again, it’s not enough to warrant an African Empire with Ethiopian hegemony. It’s also worth noting that the emergence of a Liberian-led Monrovia Bloc and Ethiopian-led East African Community is facilitating regional cooperation and defense.
Something Africa really needs right now. By the way, any plans of increasing the number and importance of Ethiopian Jews?
I don't think that Pan-Africanism would really solve Africa's problems but this isn't the place to talk about that. On the Beta Israel, it's to the contrary - their sizable presence in Israel and state-supported emigration to the aforementioned nation would probably see a gradual decline of Ethiopia's Jews by the 1970s to perhaps even lower than their current numbers in OTL's Ethiopia, roughly 4,000.
I am thinking about doing another chapter on the Beta Israel in the future so watch out for that.
If Tomorrow Brings War
If Tomorrow Brings War
Excerpt from The Great Toyota War: The Equatorian-Libyan War, 1971-72/73 by Tom Cooper
Excerpt from The Great Toyota War: The Equatorian-Libyan War, 1971-72/73 by Tom Cooper
With the collapse of pan-Arab nationalism and Tripoli's grand designs on Sub-Saharan Africa, Gaddafi's decision to commit to cementing Libyan claims on Aozou in the months leading up to what many have dubbed "Great Toyota War" with increased Libyan support to FROLINAT isn't surprising. Anti-Arab feeling was on the rise as knowledge of Egypt was doing in Sudan, Darfur especially, became more widespread and was promoted by the government of Juwama hoping to receive more African support. Nasser's attempts at African integration often fell flat as other African states - and even the Yemenis - invoked the memory of Cairo's hegemony in the UAS, sarcastically questioning whether or not Black Africa could govern itself without "the Arab man's burden." Boganda's mounting opposition to Libyan claims came with the Monrovia Bloc's support and the Central Africans' Community, strengthening Equatoria's anti-Arab stance even as Boganda felt his old age and started to consider whom to select to succeed him. Ultimately and unsurprisingly, he selected Tombalbaye to succeed him in his position as another progressive who'd dedicated himself to embracing full democracy and modernity.
Boganda's voluntary retirement in early 1971 displayed his dedication to a liberal democratic state built on stable foundations and showed the veteran statesman's old age. Tombalbaye's rise to power in August 1971 now marked an important turning point in Equatorian history where Gaddafi finally made the decision to launch a Libyan invasion of northern Equatoria with the intention to annex the Aozou Strip. Equatorian troops in Aozou, used to dealing with the ill-equipped FROLINAT, found themselves under siege from better-equipped Libyan soldiers supported by overwhelming artillery, aerial and armored support. In the middle of the succession, their northern neighbor seized the chance to take them off-guard, hoping to force Brazzaville to accept a fait accompli before it could mobilize the general populace or worse, French assistance. However, Tombalbaye ensured a French withdrawal from Equatoria was to take place a month prior with his requests for the unilateral removal of French military forces and advisors based in the country, seeing them as little else than the tools utilized by a neocolonialist nation desperate to preserve its influence and former position on the world stage as a superpower. Thus, Equatoria's military was caught in the middle of a transition with its pants down as well.
8,000 Libyan soldiers pushed into the Tibesti Region of Chad province with their sights set on Tibesti's capital, Bardaï, while reinforcements were rushed to northern Chad. Jean-Bédel Bokassa, Commander-in-Chief of the Equatorian Army, ordered a total mobilization and called up 20,000 men to reinforce the Equatorian forces based in Chad as Brazzaville formally proclaimed war on Tripoli for its illegal invasion. FROLINAT insurgents who now received full Libyan material support and operating bases from Darfur, facilitated by tacit Egyptian approval, opened up a second frontline in the northeasternmost Ennedi-Est Region to direct Equatoria's attention to the insurgency there. However, Bokassa's ability to amass large numbers of Equatorian troops with adequate firepower - often superior to what FROLINAT could muster up - allowed him the ability to crush FROLINAT. It's unsurprising that FROLINAT was unable to sufficiently commit enough numbers to the effort in Ennedi-Est with the war of attrition that the Tibesti Front devolved into and its inability to defend against Darfur's insurgent forces under the National Umma Party, led by Sadiq al-Mahdi, who'd been clashing with the Egyptians since 1956.
Fighting in Tibesti was brutal as Libyan offensives and Equatorian counterattacks occurred across Chad's sparsely-populated Saharan north, particularly around the Tibesti Mountains. The mountain range had acted as an Equatorian forward base, constantly besieged by Libyan forces unable to pry defending Equatorian soldiers from the Tibesti Mountains that now formed the basis of the Tibesti Salient. In the midst of the conventional war in Tibesti and Aozou, Bokassa looked for any way for Equatoria to gain an edge over Libya, recruiting Toubou and Zaghawa nomads who were given Toyota trucks and French MILAN anti-tank guns. This is where the war of Equatoria and Libya gains the infamous moniker of the Great Toyota War, stemming from Equatoria's use of its nomads as mobile units whose objective was to act as crack shock units. They struck seemingly at random as a showcase of their historical use of desert warfare against Libyan troops who were slow to respond and react to these hit-and-run tactics, allowing conventional Equatorian forces following closely behind to attack with the usual overwhelming ferocity they displayed. These crack shock units, with their extreme mobility and extensive use of maneuverable tactics, proved frustrating targets for Libyan tank crews.
The back-and-forth that characterized the opening months of the war stabilized after the Libyan encirclement of the Tibesti Salient in mid-September and a subsequent Equatorian offensive. Although it had halted Libyan forces marching southwards and inflicted horrific casualties on Gaddafi's Islamic Legionnaires, said offensive failed to reach many of its objectives by early November. Thus, both sides begun to dig in and each carried out a number of limited attacks against the other while bringing in more strategic reserves from their respective heartlands and attempted to gain outside support by invoking religious, cultural and ethnic/racial solidarity. Their successes in these fields varied - Equatoria possessed faithful allies in the Monrovia Bloc, Central African Community, East African Community and its French benefactors in Paris. Not to mention that the Equatorians now functioned on a total war footing that drew popular support from the general populace who'd united under the Equatorian banner with the threat of Arab imperialism. Meanwhile, Tripoli found little support for its venture in Chad in the Arab world and drew the ire of the West after invading a stable African country with a pro-Western government, particularly Paris and Washington.
Western support to Equatoria came in the form of bountiful shipments of equipment that Bokassa eagerly accepted, especially French Jaguar fighter-bombers, MILAN guns and Redeye SAMs. The Equatorian military now possessed an optimistic opinion about the inevitable reclamation of Libyan-occupied Tibesti and Aozou as Bokassa enlisted the assistance of Hassan Djamous, dubbed "The Black Rommel," and Ahmed Gorou. Equatorians, rallying around Tombalbaye's National Unity Government after an aging Boganda called upon them to resist the Arab invader to the death, volunteered in droves and provided the Equatorian Army with enough men for an upcoming offensive at 40,000 volunteers and bolstered the size of the Equatorian Army to 100,000 men. Bokassa divided the EA's ten divisions into three Operational Groups with different tasks set before them and their Toubou-Zaghawa shock units set to penetrate deep into the Libyan rear to prevent the substantial Libyan armored reserves from helping their infantry counterparts. Alarmed at the growing number of Equatorian soldiers, the Libyans had correctly perceived the enemy activities to be preparations for a new offensive and hurriedly dug in as Gaddafi dispatched his Jamahiriyyah Guard to reinforce Libyan positions in Chad.
The expected offensive commenced in December 1972 but was preceded by a Libyan offensive under Col. Khalifa Haftar. The Libyan attempt to thrust forward was halted in its tracks and promptly destroyed by Bokassa's hand when Operational Group A launched an overwhelming counterattack that snuffed out the Libyan assault. With the December Offensive gaining momentum, the Equatorian Army deployed the crack shock units and a total of 20,000 tribal irregulars attacked weak points all across the Libyan line, grinding down defending Libyan troops who were completely taken off-guard by these bold tribesmen. Now, Operational Group B smashed in the Libyan defense at Wadi Doum as Djamous presided over the vast encirclements of Libyan forces in Tibesti and reclaimed Bardaï after fierce house-to-house fighting. The Battle of Bardaï resulted in 2,000 casualties, its brutality and near-suicidal Libyan defenders fighting tooth and nail for every inch of the city inflicting heavy losses on both sides. However, Bardaï's liberation marked a turning point with the breaking of Libya's back in the meat-grinder that was the Tibesti Front, seeing the Equatorians turn their eyes onto the very piece of land that had started the war - the Aozou Strip.
Mounting Libyan losses peaked at 20,000 casualties and the loss of valuable Soviet-supplied equipment, abandoned by retreating Libyan soldiers falling back to Tibesti and Aozou. Gaddafi, hoping to salvage something out of this disastrous failure in Chad, suddenly adopted a conciliatory outlook and offered to purchase the Aozou Strip from Brazzaville for 40 million pounds. Tombalbaye, having observed the battles at Oum Chalouba, Zouar, Faya Largeau, Ouadi Doum and Fada, flatly refused - after all, why would he simply abandon Aozou when nearly 20,000 lives had been lost over Libya's invasion of the strip? No, this was personal now. Tibesti's liberation in January 1972 opened the road to Aozou which was guarded by some 13,629 men - one-third of the entire Libyan Army - and Bokassa prepared 25,000 men for the reclamation of Aozou. Equatorian forces came for Aozou, well-trained and armed veterans who'd been fighting since Libya's invasion in '71 and were determined to avenge their fallen comrades in the process while driving out the Arab menace and its puppets. Supported by these men, along with Equatorian armor and artillery, the tribal shock units probed and nibbled at the line following the seizure of several focal points weakened for their conventional counterparts.
25,000 men of the Equatorian Army collided with Libyan defenses at Aozou, joining in the unrelenting bombardment coming by way of howitzer and tank by unloading their magazines into the Libyans. Softening up Libyan forces, Equatorian veterans tore into their opposition - often quite literally - and ultimately prevailed over the vicious close quarters fighting that came to characterize the Battle of Aozou. With several points in the lines in Aozou now available, Equatorian soldiers started pouring in by the hundreds, if not thousands, in a lightning campaign that soon transformed into the same house-to-house fighting that had been present at Bardaï. Libyans often weren't taken prisoner and they didn't show any mercy to their Equatorian counterparts, not with summary executions of Libyan troops and Equatoria's Jaguars pounding the hell out of Libyan positions. Bokassa had had enough of young Equatorian men dying for little else than a neighborhood or a district gained, recruiting the competent veterans Djamous and Gorou in planning one last grand encirclement. It was in February that the Equatorian General Staff finally decided on Operation Eboue, approving its commencement in March 1972 when a mix of irregular tribesmen and Equatorian regulars marched into Libya proper.
These men launched a successful raid against the key Libyan air base at Maaten al-Sarra, downing dozens of Libyan aircraft and killing as many Libyan troops guarding the air base. Having carried out the attack under cover of night, the Libyan garrison had thought the approaching Equatorians reinforcements and didn't realize otherwise until it was too late. Horrified, Gaddafi set to work preparing defenses in southern Libya against potential Equatorian incursions and drew away men from Aozou, giving Hassan Djamous the opportunity to enact Operation Eboue all over the Aozou Strip. Approximately 30,000 Equatorian soldiers carried out pincer movements that enveloped the Libyans' already-pressed positions and ordered "swarms" of men to overwhelm the Libyan units with excesses in manpower and firepower. To the Libyan soldiers already being pummeled by Equatorian artillery and Jaguars, waves of screaming Equatorian soldiers unloading entire magazines into their positions and shouting God-knows-what in an alien language was too much. Having been harried continuously, pressures by relentless Equatorian attacks finally forced the remnants of Libya's expeditionary force in Aozou to surrender after losing several thousand - 8,395 POWs for Equatoria.
The capture of 8,395 Libyan soldiers was a harsh blow to Gaddafi's prestige and the populace, already tired of the news of defeat after defeat in Chad, demanded peace with the Equatorians. Gaddafi relented, pursuing the avenues of peace with Tombalbaye who was all too happy to invite Libyan delegates to Brazzaville to discuss peace and more importantly, reparations. The presence of 50,000 Equatorian soldiers on the southern border of Libya certainly helped to ensure the Libyans stayed true to their alleged intentions of finding peace between the two, particularly on the matter of compensating the families of dead Equatorian soldiers and the damages of the war caused in Chad as the main site of fighting. Brazzaville and Tripoli clashed over what would be considered sufficient financial compensation, leading the Organization of African Unity to get involved and negotiate a proper deal in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, where the Addis Ababa Accords of 1973 spelled out a final conclusion to the Great Toyota War. It dictated that Equatoria would receive 40 million pounds in her financial compensation, properly demarcating the Equatorian-Libyan frontier and cementing the Equatorian hold over the Aozou Strip legally while both countries were to demobilize their armies and allow a small border garrison.
Equatorian victory was celebrated with massive celebrations in Brazzaville lasting weeks, heralding the nation's victory over "Libyan Arab imperialism." It could be argued that Equatoria's war with Libya was responsible in forging an Equatorian identity on the nationalist ideals that Eboue and Boganda had established, particularly through the military that had seen the mobilization of 130,000 men from all over the country. Despite the sheer diversity of the Equatorian Armed Forces and the difficulties inherent in maintaining such a force, Equatorian officers displayed a remarkable ability to keep and command cohesive units under fire. It was with bonds which were formed in wartime that persisted in the face of prior ethnic tensions and differences, doing away with them entirely even when these men were demobilized and pursued independent lives for themselves. Many of its former veterans went on to pursue a career in politics by either joining prominent parties like MESAN and PPE or forming new ones entirely that competed with the various other parties as Tombalbaye made the issue of a potential threat from North Africa one of the main parts of his platform during the 1974 federal elections, strengthening Equatorian democracy in the process and cementing anti-Arab sentiment among Equatorians.
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Our Unity
Our Unity
Excerpt from The Black Circle: A History of Negritudean Haiti by C.L.R. James
Excerpt from The Black Circle: A History of Negritudean Haiti by C.L.R. James
Upon its formation in January 1958, the West Indian Federation had to deal with a multitude of issues stemming from its inherent arrangement. The poor state of most of the islands that joined the federation made them a pitiful excuse next to vibrant Haiti and Jamaica whose developed economies were prospering, meaning that they would be the ones toeing the budget for expensive development programs. Another problem were disputes between the federal government and the state governments, as well as those between the smaller states and their larger counterparts over the influence the latter might wield. It didn't help that the economic basis of WIF was shaky to begin with, despite the links established by the Garveyite network and British colonial officials, nor did the constant political squabbling and subsequent deadlock in the Federal Parliament. Estimé maintained a neutral position, though he couldn't help but watch in disgust as the political parties and provincial governments constantly go at it while achieving nothing of real significance. The West Indian economy entirely relied on that of the wealthier states, i.e. Haiti and Jamaica, and Haiti's Governor-General wasn't exactly happy to see that his particular state was the one footing the bill for all this.
Exploiting Haiti's prominence within the WIF, Estimé mobilized the support of the Haitian Army - who also wasn't happy with the WIF's inefficiency - and seized power in the de-facto capital at Port-au-Prince. The Haitians of the capital welcomed this coup with open arms and especially Estimé who'd been very popular with the average Haitian in his tenure over Haiti prior to its entry into the WIF. The West Indian garrisons based in the state governments' control outside Haiti aligned themselves with his government and their respective islands were brought under Port-au-Prince's direct governance. What soon followed was the abolition of all political parties and the reorganization of the federation itself into a cohesive entity centered around the Haitian polity that now dominated its politics. The Federal Parliament was dissolved in favor of a West Indian National Assembly as the single legislative body of the West Indian Federation - the upper Senate was chosen by the President and the lower House of Representatives by the Party. Speaking of said Party, the HNU had been reorganized into its newfound form - the West Indian National Union - and now acted as the supreme state organ of organization from above in the now centralized federation.
This extensive centralization of power provoked an uproar from the members of former political parties who were quietly silenced and the mulatto elites who were just as harshly treated as those of Haiti had been under a fiercely anti-mulatto administration, forcing them to go abroad to the United States or Western Europe. Although this was received well in Haiti proper and other areas that were predominantly populated by West Indians of Negro descent, it wasn't popular among the WIF's substantial mixed-race communities and facilitated a mass exodus for those who could afford to go to neighboring nations. The mulattoes who didn't, or couldn't, would be treated with relative leniency by Estimé's administration who adopted the Garveyite outlook, encouraging them to intermix with West Indian Negroes in order to breed the White out of them. In the meantime, Negroes in the WIF were now given preferential treatment in stark contrast to their European, Chinese and/or Indian counterparts as the Haitian middle class and elite of Negro background was expanded to include other Negroes in the West Indies with state-sponsored assistance, simultaneously supplanting the Anglophone character of the West Indies with Haiti's Francophone culture.
Even with the brain drain and capital flight that accompanied the more wealthy mulattoes, the Haitian state dealt with it by extorting her Jamaican and Trinidadian counterparts to spend more on the West Indian Negroes, deprived of the opportunity to flourish under the colonialists, in order to properly uplift them. With Haiti already footing the bill for Estimé's planned expenditures, Jamaica and Trinidad-Tobago, already supportive of their policies of state-sponsored Negro ascendance and all those principles fundamental to Garveyism, agreed to help Haiti by contributing their own funds. The outrage felt by the WIF's mixed-race communities died down and was reduced to grumbling about Haitian hegemony as Estimé approved infrastructure and development projects spanning the entire WIF. It was done not just to foster proper economic development but to connect Haiti's strategic position and hinge its influence within the Caribbean on a robust economy, even looking to Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal as a model to be emulated. The gradual liberalization of the Haitian economy was closely monitored by Estimé and the West Indian National Union so as to avoid the fates of other Latin American nations when they didn't toe the American line.
Speaking of Haiti and the United States, Estimé was careful to mold and project Haiti's image as a Caribbean nation vital to the containment of the spread of Communism. He was very aware of the image of a revolutionary Black republic, slaughtering all those innocent French people, and what sort of reactions that had invoked from America in particular in the past, wishing to avoid another economic blockade. Instead, he presented Haiti for her American allies not just to be the linchpin of anti-Communist American strategy in the Caribbean - especially with Fidel Castro's recent ascendance - but a symbol of the success of republican ideals in a Black nation. Its central position in the West Indian Federation provided it with the stability that other Black nations were lacking in, pointing to the example of African decolonization in the '60s. Justifying the measures taken against their mulatto subjects, West Indian officials pointed out the historical subversion of Haitian mulattoes and emphasized America's own role in cementing mulatto hegemony, even appealing to the Southern Democrats by looking to former Senator Theodore Bilbo's role in facilitating the emigration of American Negroes to Liberia in the late 1930s.
Estimé soon proved Haiti's worth to America when revolution exploded in the Dominican Republic in April 1965 as Col. Elias Wessin ousted President Juan Bosch's constitutionalist government with the support of civilian officials in the Dominican Revolutionary Party with the aim of restoring Dominican stratocracy as it had existed under Trujillo. To Washington, Bosch's leftist policies were alarming moves in what was seen as socialism and ultimately, the expansion of Soviet influence in the Caribbean while simultaneously angering the Dominican Catholic Church, military and elites. It didn't help when he supported Haitian exiles in ousting the government at Port-au-Prince and offered them operating bases along the border with Haiti after the formation of the West Indian Federation nearly encircled the Dominican Republic toward the late 1950s. Estimé responded to efforts by Haitian exiles, in many cases either consisting of and/or led by Haitian mulattoes, with a ruthless suppression that saw the expansion of the Haitian Army from 9,000 men to 13,000. However, Haitian raids on Dominican embassies and imprisonment of Dominican refugees over the course of April 1963 nearly brought the two to war. Thus, the stage was set for the West Indian intervention in the Dominican Republic.
At this opportunity, Estimé was eager to crush Bosch and played on Washington's anti-Communist position to secure support for an intervention by the WIF. The fierce fighting around Santo Domingo between the Loyalist and Constitutionalist factions worried President Johnson who started supporting the Loyalists while approving West Indian intervention. Thus, in late April, roughly 30,000 West Indian soldiers, most of them Haitian, now penetrated deep into the Dominican Republic to support Wessin's Loyalists, much to the shock and outrage of Wessin's men and much of the Dominican populace at the sizable Haitian presence. Although many Haitians in the West Indian Expeditionary Force wanted nothing more than to exact revenge from the Dominicans for 1937, orders came down straight from the top - any soldier who committed a crime against a Dominican was to be shot on the spot, effective immediately. So even as Bosch's ranks were filled by Dominicans during the West Indian advance all the way to Santo Domingo, Bosch's Constitutionalists ultimately collapsed in the face of WIF's impressive military and the American expeditionary force as their combined might installed General Antonio Imbert as President of the Government of National Reconstruction by early May.
The West Indian (or more correctly, Haitian) victory over Bosch's men was heralded as the successful avenging of '37 and the Dominican injustices against the Haitian nation since Dominican independence in 1844. Estimé offered to maintain the West Indian presence in the Dominican Republic until the Loyalists decidedly suppressed the Constitutionalists, something that didn't happen until August. In the West Indian National Assembly, its Haitian representatives proposed more than once a restoration of Jean-Pierre Boyer's unified Hispaniola, though the Dominican part was to maintain an autonomous existence. However, the Haitian occupation wasn't the most popular with the predominantly Mestizo Dominican population that'd been rigidly instilled with anti-Haitian and anti-Black propaganda since Trujillo's Presidency, nor was it popular with the other West Indians. WIF representatives questioned the practicality behind the occupation when the OAS' mission maintained only a small presence there, particularly the financial issues that were bound to spring up from it. However, Estimé had his own sights set on securing his legacy as another Boyer and although he agreed to scale down the WIF's presence to 10,000 men, he showed little intention of abandoning the Dominican Republic.
Excerpt from A History of Modern Ethiopia, 1855-1991 by Bahru Zewde
Ethiopia entered the 1970s with caution, owing to the hostility of neighboring Egypt and Somalia stemming from a combination of historical animosity and territorial design on Ethiopia. Attempts at reconciliation between Addis Ababa and Mogadishu were made in light of the socialist junta's coup, though these fell flat with Siad Barre advocating the cause of Greater Somalia. The Somali Democratic Republic's alignment with the Arab world, particularly Fuad's Egypt and Ba'athist Iraq, only displayed the danger of this socialist Somalia to the Ethiopian government - making it all the more alarming when Barre started receiving economic and material aid from an Ethiopian ally, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Livid, Araya confronted Moscow and demanded to know as to why the irredentist, chauvinist regime in Mogadishu was being allowed to suckle the massive Soviet teat when Soviet Russia's principle ally in Northeast Africa was clearly Ethiopia? Pointing out how Somalia's economy had suffered from Ethiopia's decision to completely seal off the Ogaden from Somali access, Moscow would be the one footing the cost of helping Somalia develop a self-sufficient economy on a proper socialist basis, just like Julius Nyerere had done in Tanzania.
Despite the Soviet Union's reasoning, many in Ethiopian government viewed Soviet assistance to Somalia with extreme suspicion and even more so when arms and advisors made their way to Mogadishu. Araya approved a thorough expansion of the Imperial Ethiopian Army from its peacetime 20,000 men to 40,000, reinforcing the Third Division in the Ogaden when a series of border incidents started up. Already, Ethiopian officials drew the conclusion of yet another repeat of 1963 but without the Soviet support that Ethiopia received which alleviated some of her problems in invading Somaliland in 1965/66. However, the USSR showed clearly that there now would be no Soviet support for an Ethiopian attack against Somalia, perhaps causing the split with Soviet Russia that Araya had already been contemplating and the ultimate demise of that alliance. Although Addis Ababa's reluctance in attacking Somalia first was evident, there was little desire for yet another war with Somalia after the Ogaden War of '64 reduced much of eastern Ethiopia to rubble and taken so many lives while destroying a not significant number of others in the process. Thus, Ethiopia's rift with the Eastern Bloc begun with Moscow's insistence on supporting Somalia and facilitated Ethiopia's return to the West.
One particular thing that also facilitated Ethiopia's decision to break away from its pro-East stance was the plot against the Emperor. Although Ethiopia had maintained friendly relations with the USSR, there was no intent in facilitating the formation of political parties nor for the unilateral adoption of the Soviet model by either Imru or Araya. It was most notably Imru's left-wing politics and Moscow's willingness to provide Ethiopia with any needed material, combined with historical Russo-Ethiopian ties, that led Ethiopia to adopt a pro-Soviet stance in many cases - something that usually occurred when it came to anti-colonialism. This included an agreement, concluded in 1949/50, for the dispatching of a Soviet military mission to Ethiopia which facilitated the spread of left-wing sentiments through the ranks via Soviet officers. It wasn't long before there was the establishment of the clandestine Ethiopian Socialist Party by the rank-and-file of the Second Division and even a few Imperial Guardsmen in 1959 - it combined Ethiopian nationalism with a Soviet-style political and economic model. The ESP was led by Germame Neway who'd initially been impressed by Imru's reforms but admonished the Ethiopian Monarchy for its Fascistic trappings and desired to establish a socialist Ethiopian federation.
Exploiting the growing unrest and rise of inflation because of the 1973 oil crisis, the ESP launched its coup against the Imperial government by attempting to seize the Imperial Palace. It was in late December 1974 that the ESP ordered its men to precede the seizure of the Imperial Palace with an artillery bombardment mortally wounding the royal couple, both dying within hours of the other when Araya succumbed to his wounds first. There was then an outburst of instability that rolled through the country when news of the death of the Emperor and Empress reached both Ethiopians and the international community. Outrage was sparked against the ESP and its murder of the royal couple - who'd led Ethiopia into the modern age while maintaining a remarkably stable and popular government - as Imru denounced them, providing a prominent figure from which to rally around. It wasn't long before the Imperial Bodyguard and Ethiopian paratroopers stormed the Imperial Palace, wiping out the defending men and summarily executing the rest without question. Araya and Kuroda would be buried in the Te'eka Negast Mausoleum next to the Emperors Iyasu V and Menelik II with that forceful end to the plot by Imru himself.
The death of the royal couple brought up the issue of succession, unsurprisingly seeing Imru being recommended as the succeeding Emperor. However, the aging Imru - pushing 79 - possessed little interest in governing his nation after he'd already done so much for it on the frontline and behind the scenes, just wanting to retire to his estate in Gojjam. Imru instead proposed his younger son, Mikael, to succeed Araya as the new Emperor of his Empire with the support of the Crown Council, Union of Gihon and Parliament. Mikael was elevated to the imperial throne in January 1974 after some squabbling with Araya's children over their particular lack of Solomon and Sheba's Semitic blood that provided him with the mandate to sit on the throne, sidelining them to foreign postings or impotent positions within the Ethiopian government. Interestingly, it was Tafari Araya - Araya's first son - who concluded the end of tacit hostilities with the Republic of China, or South China as it is commonly referred to, by venturing to their capital at Nanking and officially apologizing about the possible role of Ethiopian forces in the Second Sino-Japanese War. Although this wasn't exactly popular with either Ethiopians or Japanese, it did kick-start the establishment of cultural and economic ties between the two that last to this day.
Meanwhile, Imru officially resigned command of the Imperial Ethiopian Army and elected in his place a prominent veteran of the Ogaden War, General Aman Andom. Having on his record commanding the Third Division in the invasion of Somaliland, occupation of Zeila by February 1965 and the virtual annihilation of the Eritrean Liberation Front at Nakfa in March 1969, Andom was genuinely popular and a good choice. Another plus was his support for Mikael upon his ascendance to the throne as the new Commander-in-Chief of the IEA cracked down harshly on any leftist sentiment in the army with the UG's assistance. Mikael oversaw economic recovery on Ethiopia's behalf by drafting and instituting a series of reforms that aimed to facilitate the expansion of the Ethiopian oil industry by expanding operations in the Ogaden, investing more in Juwama's vast oil reserves and an economic expansion program that aimed at the consolidation of the East African Community's respective economies. The latter was particularly useful when Barre exploited the unrest in Ethiopia to deploy SNA units near the Ogadeni frontier and northern Kenya to probe at Ethiopian and Kenyan defenses, only to be repulsed.
In spite of the seeming revival of Somali irredentism toward the mid- to late 1970s, Ethiopia was recovering from the oil crisis and rift with the Eastern Bloc by turning to fellow African nations and the West. That revival of Somali irredentism and ultranationalism under a socialist veneer, combined with renewed Egyptian encroachment on Juwama, reaffirmed the East African Community's mutual commitments. The 1966 Nairobi Pact would not just be honored once again in 1975 but expanded with the holding of joint military exercises around Juba between its respective members - namely Ethiopia, Kenya and Juwama. This was explicitly chosen to incense an ostensibly pissed off King Fuad II and make a show of East African solidarity against what was commonly perceived, and not incorrectly, to be Egyptian imperialism. Talks were already underway in Addis Ababa between its EAC members, Brazzaville and Monrovia to establish an alliance spanning Black Africa's northernmost states against the imperialist overtures of nations like Egypt and Libya who just couldn't keep their hands away off the southern neighbors they claimed to support. In Monrovia, the Tolbert administration was all too happy to oblige the East African nations and Equatoria on what it viewed as "[...] the Arab question."
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Prevail
Prevail
Excerpt from Africa's Shining Star: A History of Garveyist Liberia by Mark Christian Thompson
Excerpt from Africa's Shining Star: A History of Garveyist Liberia by Mark Christian Thompson
Liberia was an ascendant nation in the wake of the Second World War, having transformed from a perpetually poor country to a rapidly developing regional powerhouse within two decades. Although Liberia was aligned in favor of the Axis during 1940-41 and had launched invasions of Britain's West African colonies, it had preserved not only its influence but its wartime gains in Sierra Leone. American Lend-Lease also provided the Liberians with the opportunity to ramp up the Liberian military and industry to an unprecedented scale as a Liberian regiment was sent to Italy in 1943. Thus, the experienced Liberian Frontier Force, closely supported by armor and airpower, was a premier West African force - and the largest in the region at 100,000 men by 1945 - that could now afford to flex its newfound muscle on nearby colonial powers not just for the purpose of avenging Liberia and righting the wrongs that had been done to it since 1847 but for Garvey's scheme of African liberation. Garvey correctly surmised that the end of the war would bring back experienced African veterans home who, with their service abroad and expectations of equality, would become disillusioned with the Western farce of racial equality and come to constitute the core of a new generation of anti-colonial resistance.
However, the question of succession came before that of African liberation and an aging Garvey had yet to select someone to succeed him. The influx of younger blood from the New World and Liberia alike gave rise to the factionalization of the UNIA and its shift from Garvey's brand of Black internationalism to a territorial-focused Liberian nationalism that came to dominate Liberia for the next few decades. It was Carlos Cooks who had his own benefactor in Liberian Supreme Court associate judge William V.S. Tubman and ultimately ended up succeeding Garvey when the latter decided to retire in 1956. Possessing not an insignificant influence in the halls of Monrovia, Tubman had correctly concluded that the UNIA's popularity with the Liberian masses and joined the UNIA when it won the general elections of 1931, maintaining his position in Liberian government even after a Garveyist purge left few of the prior Americo-Liberian elites in power - he even managed to retain his membership in the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge under Garvey! Tubman's promotion of his proposed Unification Policy in the stead of the historic Native Policy [1] and advocacy for the proper integration of all Liberians, regardless of background, made him popular with many.
In contrast, Carlos Cooks had no intention of merely working behind the scenes. His street speeches, reminiscent of the pro-Axis Robert Jordan in Harlem, could whip up the average passerby into a frenzy of radical Blacks who would dedicate themselves to the cause of the race at his call and beck. After all, Cooks had played an instrumental role in rallying indigenous Liberians to the UNIA's cause during the campaign season in 1931 and had made his reputation amongst them as a fellow Liberian who passionately believed in equality for the entirety of the Black race in Liberia and Africa at large. Having played up men like Blyden and Crummell as examples of a New Negro's ideal characteristics, as well as Liberia's supposed role as the nucleus of a West African empire, it is little wonder that Garvey won in '31. His decision to volunteer in Ethiopia with the Black Star Regiment now made him a war hero who could enter into the ranks of the many Great War veterans who'd emigrated to Liberia and fervent anti-mulatto stance when Haiti went to war against the Dominican Republic in 1937 did him the favor of making him a popular veteran with proper Garveyist credentials. Garvey's interest was piqued by this young man, later stating a positive opinion of Cooks and his unrepentant belief in Garveyism.
It was a combination of Tubman's political maneuvering and the open political organization of Africans across the border in French West Africa that saw Cooks come to power. The UNIA's clashing factions came to the fore of Liberian politics as some, like George Schuyler, denounced the deviation from the original Garveyist program of Black internationalism and African liberation. Others like Tubman represented the less dogmatic faction, a more "narrow nationalist," or Liberian nationalist perspective that the UNIA had been moving toward since 1936-38, arguing that it was only with the complete mobilization of all Liberians around the Liberian identity and a West African one would lead to true African liberation. Meanwhile, infighting within the African Democratic Rally coalition (RDA) remained a prominent issue to the utter disgust of the UNIA when Ivorian delegates now supported assimilation into the culture of the French metropole with the hopes of achieving equality and economic parity with France proper, led by Felix Houphouët-Boigny. The passing of the 1956 Overseas Reform Act, in 1956, only served to split French West Africans on the issue of independence from Charles de Gaulle's France and Cooks seized the opportunity to ascend to power.
Making passionate speeches and appeals to the delegates before him, Cooks pleaded with the Liberian Legislature to take action against French colonialism and its puppets. With Tubman ensuring backdoor support from a recalcitrant Washington and the rest of the UNIA, Cooks secured a landslide in upcoming elections as Ghana gained independence in March 1957. Shortly after being inaugurated, Cooks congratulated Kwame Nkrumah in his struggle against Western colonialism and applauded the Convention People's Party (CPP) as the first vanguard of revolutionary African ideology. Nkrumah responded politely but distanced Ghana from Liberia, seeing a Liberia dominated by New World Blacks [2] as no friend, particularly after their incursion into the British Gold Coast in WWII that he saw as nothing more than Americo-Liberian imperialism. Soon enough, Nkrumah would seek out other allies in the Casablanca Bloc, Central African Community, Eastern Bloc, and Non-Aligned Movement to counter Liberian designs on Ghana. Although Garveyism was quite prominent in Ghana, the CPP made sure it possessed little chance of gaining power and instead promoted Nkrumah's blend of nationalism and socialism while establishing friendly ties with the Soviet Union, much to Monrovia's horror.
With Ghana forging ties with the Eastern Bloc, Cooks turned to see if Liberia could find any potential post-colonial friends in West and Central Africa. In French West Africa, many in the RDA were coming to prefer ideas of independence to the reality of Houphouët-Boigny's federalism and Léopold Sédar Senghor proposed the idea of West African union. French Senegal, Sudan, Upper Volta, and Dahomey would come together to establish an Equatoria-esque federal republic dubbed the Mali Federation under the African Regroupment Party (RPA) in the process. However, it faced fierce resistance from not just Houphouët-Boigny but France too and led to their natural attempts to block it but by then, it was simply too late and the cause of independence as advocated by the RPA was too popular in French West Africa. It was in French Sudan that Modibo Keita was swiftly defeated by the Sudanese branch of the RPA in March 1959, providing the basis for the establishment of a PFA government spanning the four colonies' new federation. Endorsed by de Gaulle himself when he visited Bamako in Dec. 1959, the Mali Federation formally became an independent nation in June 1960 with the MF Premier being the Sudanese Fily Dabo Sissoko and its Vice-Premier Senegalese Mamadou Dia.
Houphouët-Boigny made sure that the Ivory Coast became an outcast among the newly independent African states, with his advocacy for the continuance of union with France. His opposition to the Mali Federation would mark this as well, only convincing Niger to avoid joining the Mali Federation and attempted to preserve French influence and investments in the Ivory Coast. With close French support and alignment, Yamoussoukro would go on to become a bastion of pro-French sentiment in a region that was largely staunchly opposed to Western colonialism, often Socialist and Garveyist. His efforts to forge a close relationship with Equatoria yielded little, Barthélemy Boganda's Equatoria rejecting his overtures with their own desire to remain free of French neocolonialism and it was only in Nicolas Grunitzky's Togo that Yamoussoukro found a friendly ally. This did not last a decade when he was ousted by Eyadéma Gnassingbé who quickly established a stratocratic government under the Rally of the Togolese People (RTP) on the Garveyist pattern, seeking support from Liberia to remain in the national government of Togo. Liberian support wasn't forthright coming with the secession of the Republic of Biafra from Nigeria in May 1967, facilitating the balkanization of Nigeria with Liberian intervention.
The Biafrans were surprisingly successful in their secession from Nigeria, receiving close support from Liberia and France who were both keen to expand their existing influence in West Africa. Supplementing mercenaries, Liberia dispatched volunteers from the Universal African Corps to fight under Biafran command and France was provided with an air base at Spanish Fernando Po. Emboldened by Liberian and French assistance, Ojukwu's government felt confident enough to launch its own offensive in early August that saw considerable success when Biafran soldiers drove westwards, rapidly approaching the Nigerian capital, Lagos. Biafran troops ensured Biafran independence by quickly seizing Lagos - although not without heavy casualties - and facilitating the collapse of the federal Nigerian authorities' war effort as they attempted to flee the city. British support was only too late to arrive as Biafra's seizure of the Nigerian capital led to the secession of Yorubaland and saw the federal government relocate north in the heart of the Hausa-Fulani in the north. It ultimately proved disastrous, its Africa policy laying in ruins while Liberia and France immediately recognized the independence of Biafra and Yorubaland in the aftermath of the Battle of Lagos.
West Africa's geopolitical map was changed forever with the establishment of the Biafran Republic and Liberia's decision to support it extensively, as well as the formation of various regional blocs by the late '60s. Liberia's efforts yielded the formation of the Monrovia Bloc included Liberia, Biafra, Yorubaland, and Mali Federation. The Casablanca Bloc consisted of Ghana, Guinea, the United Arab Republic, and Libya. These two blocs came to constantly clash with one another under their various leaderships over the future of West Africa which was coming to finally shed off Western colonialism and oust French colonialism in particular with the open of the '70s.
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[1] The Liberian "Native Policy" focused primarily on the promotion of cultural assimilation and indirect rule until it was finally abandoned in either 1930 or 1944. See Black Imperialism: Americo-Liberian Rule over the African Peoples of Liberia, 1841-1964 by M.B. Akpan for more.