British parliamentary delegation visits Somalia during the Ogaden War (1978)
A delegation led by late British MP Julian Amery (and Winston Churchill apparently?!) visited Somalia in a show of support for Barre's ailing war effort
Julian Amery was a Tory MP in opposition in 1978. He spent much of his career lamenting a collapsing British empire and worked vigorously to maintain its authority and leading position in global affairs. In the preface of his memoir Approach March, Julian Amery offered a contrasting perspective to the prevailing global sentiment about the British Empire’s decline. He wrote: “the Britain of my boyhood…[seems] very far removed from the present age… Our role and influence in the world [have] sadly, though perhaps only temporarily, declined.” He wasn’t just optimistic but he thought its continuity would be a good thing. I can hear every city from Lagos to New Delhi laughing.
He was also a member of the controversial Monday Club, a group of reactionary Tory MPs opposed to the British government’s changing position during Harold Wilson’s premiership on the white minority regime in Rhodesia and African anti-imperialism more generally. Just to give you an idea of the type of organisation it was, Harold Soref, a devoted follower of British fascist leader Oswald Mosley was appointed to lead its Africa Group in 1963. Amery in particular became a vocal supporter of Ian Smith and Rhodesia during that period. It only got banished from the Conservative party in 2001 [!] when Iain Duncan Smith severed the party’s ties with them.
During the 1977-1978 Ogaden War Amery became an unlikely ally in the cause of advancing Somali socialism. And by unlikely I actually mean WTF, did either side read about the other. Barre was the leader of a black, socialist, Muslim republic and Amery was an avowed imperialist and white supremacist committed to free markets. This signalled the beginning of a shift in Mogadishu more broadly of who Barre was prepared to befriend in order to realise his political objectives. As his relationship with the Soviet Union broke down when Moscow threw its lot in with Ethiopia, Barre would begin appealing to the same regimes he spent much of his career publicly lambasting – from Britain and the US, to Israel and even apartheid South Africa.
As the Ogaden War turned increasingly in Ethiopia’s favour in early 1978 with strong Soviet and Cuban backing, Amery demonstrated his utility to Somali elites when he pressed the House of Commons to consider arming Somalia. On the 18th January 1978, Amery submitted a Private notice question (PNQ) to Her Majesty’s Government on Somalia’s request for military aid. Amery asked foreign secretary David Owen the following:
“Would the right honourable Gentleman not agree that the build-up of Ethiopian arms, with massive supplies of Soviet arms and with Cuban and Soviet military personnel, constitute by themselves a threat to the area and a threat to peace in the area? Unless steps are taken to correct the imbalance which this constitutes there is a real danger that we shall be faced with another Angola situation under which Ethiopia and the whole of the Horn of Africa will become a province of Soviet imperialism.”
I’ll make a separate post on how the PNQ went generally as it provided a fantastic insight into how the UK thought about self-determination and Soviet influence in Africa but Owen’s response was tempered and cautious arguing that “a very complex and damaging territorial dispute in Africa” should not be turned into an “East-West issue.” Owen wasn’t happy about Soviet influence in the Horn but was very noncommittal when it came to doing something about it. In his reply to Amery, echoing the ‘African solutions to African problems mantra’, he said:
On a number of occasions I have urged the Soviet Union and other countries to leave this issue to the OAU [Organization of African Unity] and to let it remain a dispute between Ethiopia and Somalia. I believe that the territorial integrity of countries must be respected. The way to abolish boundaries is by peaceful negotiation and not by armed aggression. What is now needed in this complex problem is mediation and the willingness between Ethiopia and Somalia to negotiate a settlement.
Not to be deterred Amery took matters into his own hands, travelling to Somalia in late February. It was spectacle more than anything but he might have had some cause for optimism. At that point Jimmy Carter had just come to power and he appeared very sympathetic at first to Somalia. By March however he made clear statement rejecting Somali appeals for military support against Ethiopia, pushing his Somali counterparts to accept a peaceful settlement.
The Somalis were still hanging on to the prospect of gaining a new superpower patron for the war, hailing Amery’s visit and dedicating a column to it in the February 1978 issue of Halgan, the official organ of the Somali Socialist Revolutionary party. Barre evidently took the wrong lessons from the Suez crisis.
One very weird thing about the column is that it claims Winston Churchill apparently rose from the dead 14 years after he passed away and joined the delegation in a bid to show solidarity with Somalia against Russia. Churchill is even quoted denouncing European imperialism! I checked if there was another Churchill who might have been his namesake but Google didn’t turn anything up – so either an MP who was a part of that delegation lied [kind of a biggie] or a very subversive writer for Halgan pulled a fast one on his editors [Hadrawi vibes]. Either way the full column with Amery’s remarks are below. It’ll make your gut twist at the points when Amery, a supporter of apartheid, condemns alleged Russian imperialism in Africa as being “much less productive and much less creative than the old imperialism.” Because, as you know, we in Africa could do we more apartheid to spite Russia because its more “productive.” I also thought he must have been totally out of his mind. Enjoy.
British MPs Visit Somalia
February 1978
A British Parliamentarian delegation led by Mr. Julian Amery concluded their visit to Somalia on the final day of February.
Mr. Julian Amery told reporters that he admired Somalia’s stiff resistnce to the imperialist policies of Russia, Cuba and their allies in the Horn of Africa. "We do not regard your struggle as a struggle between. you and Abyssinia, we regard it as a struggle between Somalia and Russian imperialists a new imperialism much more repressive, much less productive and much less creative than the old imperialism, concerned only with establishing Russian hegemony in the Horn of Africa," he said and continued "we regard this Russian aggression as a danger not only to Somalia but is could also have very serious consequences for the whole of industrial Europe and the world at large. Therefore, we feel a great solidarity with you in your just struggle."
Mr. Winston Churchill, a British MP and a member of the delegation disclosed that his country was deeply concerned at the massive build-up of Russian military power in the Horn of Africa by which it intends to invade the SDR and declared that Somalia as a third world country, cannot face alone the armed might of Russia and its allies. Mr. Churchill added that the dangerous situation in the Horn of Africa threatens the whole world because, he said, the Russian imposition of new colonial status on Abyssinia, Somalia and other countries by force will threaten the values of freedom and independence.
He called on the Western European countries to reconsider their old position and to recognize not only their interest but also their duties and obligations towards third world countries to enable them to lead their existence independently and not under this intolerable Russian military pressure. "European colonialists did not leave Africa and other parts of the world so that they could fall into the hands of a new tyranny which is what is happening today in the Horn of Africa", Mr, Churchill concluded.
The British MPs expressed their appreciation of the uni! and patriotism of the Soma!’ people under the current diffcult circumstances and pointed out that the Somali people will ultimately merge victorious.