"Surely Somalis are as good a customer for British arms as Salvador?": Parliament debates arming Somalia
The government said it would not arm Somalia as the Ogaden War drew on, but hinted they'd step in if Ethiopia crossed into Somalia in retaliation
Keeping with the theme of the UK’s role in Somalia per my last post about British MP Julian Amery’s visit with Winston Churchill (according to Halgan) this post will be about a debate that took place in parliament about whether or not the UK should arm Somalia amid the Ogaden War. This blog has focussed heavily on that so far but the bulk of declassified documents available through open source are about this “bizarre Marxist-on-Marxist war”, as one US special forces soldier put it. I’m not sure of another conflict like it during the Cold War between nominally Soviet aligned states. If there is one and you know of it, do let me know.
In any case, Somalia made a formal request to the UK for arms in January 1978 in the midst of the Ogaden War. The vicissitudes of Cold War politics saw “a superpower flip-flop” in the words of one American journalist reporting on the conflict as the Soviet Union refused to arm Somalia as it invaded another state that Moscow was seeking to build closer ties with. Julian Amery, an MP known at the time for his nostalgia for the British empire and sympathy for white minority regimes in Africa saw an opportunity to exploit the conflict to increase the UK’s role on the continent. You are by the way, welcome in this case to judge a man by the company he keeps, as Siad Barre had no qualms about Amery’s sympathies.
Amery posed a Private Notice Question (PNQ) to Labour foreign secretary David Owen to make a statement on the Somali request for arms. Below is a transcript of the discussion in parliament that day which was pretty wide-ranging and so I’ve selected the parts relevant to this blog. The foreign secretary said London was considering “the request carefully in consultation with allies” [which means: we’re asking the Americans what they’re doing before we make a call] adding that “at present” the UK was not “supplying arms to either” party to the conflict. The UK, he continued, was “actively” seeking a negotiated settlement and didn’t want a complicated ethnic issue to become another front in the “East-West conflict”, which is another way to say we don’t care enough about it to challenge the USSR there.
Amery, incidentally a vocal advocate for British imperialism and critic of prime minister Harold Macmillan’s historic “winds of change” speech, took a dim view of the Soviet variety of imperialism. Amery apparently possessed the introspective depth of a puddle in a desert. A better argument might have been that it was the UK which handed the Ogaden to Ethiopia, and he was simply correcting history. Andrew Faulds, a Labour MP in parliament that day picked up on that angle. Generally the tenor of the discussion is one of great sympathy for Somalia’s position because, in Faulds words, “the Somalis have recently and sensibly turned against the Soviets.”
Hugh Fraser, another MP in the chamber made me snigger when he said: “While I agree about the complexities of the situation, surely the Somalis are just as good a customer for British arms as the Salvador Republic?” Bernard Braine asked the foreign secretary: “why do we stand indifferently on the sidelines?”
Tom Litterick, a Labour MP was the sole voice of reason in what sounded like Somali war music beating in parliament. He warned MPs that British arms supplied to Addis Ababa had previously been used to attack hospitals and civilians in Eritrea suggesting Somalia might recklessly use high-tech arms in a similar manner. In the end the foreign secretary defended his position on the conflict despite the criticism in parliament, warning however that London would view with the “utmost seriousness” any Ethiopian attempt to cross the border into Somalia. Mogadishu, he added, had turned to its “traditional area of friendship — the West.” Owen said he was due to meet the Ethiopian vice president and would “leave him under no illusions about the dangers of that sort of adventurism.”
You can find the full transcript here if you’re interested in diving deeper.
Julian Amery: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement on the Somali Government's request to Her Majesty's Government for arms, and his Department's refusal to accede to this.
The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Dr. David Owen): No reply has been given to the Somali Government's approach, which we received on Monday. We will consider the request carefully in consultation with our allies. We are at present not supplying arms to either Somalia or Ethiopia. The conflict in the Horn is complex in its history and damaging in its effect. We have worked actively for a negotiated settlement and believe the conflict should be settled within an African context and without outside interferernce. We have supported OAU mediation efforts. The British Government would be prepared to support an approach to the Security Council if this seemed likely to help work out a basis for a settlement.
Mr. Amery: While welcoming the Foreign Secretary's statement that no reply has yet been sent—I was, therefore, perhaps wrong in speaking of a request, which was based on Press reports this morning—may I ask whether he agrees that the conflict and the problems, great though they are, are largely incidental and that there is another essential matter? Would the right hon. 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. Does the right hon. Gentleman not agree that this would be a matter of very grave concern to the oil consumers in the West and in Japan, to the oil producers in the Gulf and to countries such as the Sudan, Egypt, Israel and Kenya and that it would dramatically affect their development?
Foreign secretary David Owen: I agree that this is a very complex issue. I also agree that the build-up in recent weeks of arms and men inside Ethiopia from outside the African continent could well turn what has been a very complex and damaging territorial dispute in Africa into an East-West issue. I do not believe that it is in the interests of anyone, let alone the Soviet Union and the West, for this dispute to become an East-West issue, but as that build-up proceeds, so it will inevitably become one. On a number of occasions I have urged the Soviet Union and other countries to leave this issue to the OAU and to let it remain a dispute between Ethiopa 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.
Mr. James Johnson: As one who has visited the Ogaden since the fighting began, may I say that I support my right hon. friend's position in this complex situation at the moment. Will he tell the House what contingency planning he has in mind in the event of Mengistu and his Marxist régime building up aggression with the aid of 2,000 or 3,000 Cuban and Soviet advisers and massive numbers of MIGs and tanks flown from Aden? In the event of those forces getting to the Somali border and proceeding on to cut a land corridor to the Indian Ocean, what is our position then? Is any Anglo-American axis action open to us?
Foreign secretary David Owen: Just as I have made my position clear to the Somalis about the Ogaden, so this afternoon I shall be seeing the Deputy Foreign Minister of Ethiopia. I shall be making it quite clear to him that were the Ethiopian forces to constitute any force from outside the continent to include Somalia territories, that would be a development of the utmost seriousness which all of us in the West would be bound to view with grave concern. I shall leave him under no illusions about the dangers of that sort of adventurism.
Hugh Fraser: While I agree about the complexities of the situation, surely the Somalis are just as good a customer for British arms as the Salvador Republic? Surely, in this moment of crisis for these people, this is the time when it will be in our interests to sell them arms?
Foreign secretary David Owen: As the House knows, we have not hitherto been supplying arms to Somalia since they ceased to have their arms supplied by the Soviet Union. The reason was that we felt that where there was a territorial dispute, and where there was a question about armed aggression, we should stand by the principle embodied in the OAU statement that this sort of territorial dispute should be solved peacefully. But there are reasons why we take the position that we have taken. As the right hon. Gentleman has said, we are now faced with a different request in changing circumstances, but the cause of the dispute is still something of which the West should take account.
Tom Litterick: Does my right hon. Friend accept that there is widespread support on this side of the House for the principles embodied in the remarks that he made a few moments ago? Bearing in mind, as we on this side do, that in the quite recent past hospitals in Eritrea have been destroyed ruthlessly by bombing raids mounted by British manufactured bombers supplied by a previous British Administration, does not this underline the Secretary of State's point that the accumulation of arms in these countries makes inevitable the destruction of human lives and property and does nothing constructive to the settlement of international disputes?
Foreign secretary David Owen: My hon. Friend is right to point out that a further complexity in the problem is the Eritrean dispute, apart from the Ogaden dispute. There are many other countries about which we have great concern, not least the concern of Kenya. We have to take into account the feeling of the countries in the area. Although an East-West issue may become involved in this—I regret that it is—we must not lose sight of the fact that this is also a regional and African problem which is best solved by the normal mediation of the OAU.
Bernard Braine: Does the right hon. Gentleman not realise that, despite his sensible and moderate remarks this afternoon, many of us find it difficult to stomach the indifference of not only this country but the whole of the West to the sufferings of the people of Ethiopia and Eritrea at the hands of the Ethiopian military régime? If it be the case that it may well be right not to sell arms to Somalia for the reasons hinted at, why do not the Government go to the United Nations and charge the military régime with the crimes that it has been committing against the Ethiopian people? Why do we stand indifferently on the sidelines?
Foreign secretary David Owen: I have not stood indifferently on the sidelines. I share a great many of the sentiments which the hon. Gentleman has expressed about some of the things that have been happening inside Ethiopa. No one would wish to come to this Dispatch Box and defend some of the practices going on in that country. I shall leave the Foreign Minister in no uncertain doubt about my views on that issue as well when I see him this afternoon.
Andrew Faulds: Will my right hon. friend consider his response carefully? Does he not agree that the Somalis deserve our support because over the last century the Ethiopians have indulged in territorial aggrandisement at the expense of others. Is it not also the case that our Arab friends—this is not an unimportant point—are sympathetic to the Somalis, and that the Somalis have recently and sensibly turned against the Soviets?
Foreign secretary David Owen: I find myself agreeing with much of that. It is in our interests and a beneficial development that the Somalians should have turned to their traditional area of friendship—the West. We welcome that. In no way do we wish to build up antagonism with Somalia. I saw the Somali Vice-President in November and I made it clear to him that we would continue to give aid to his country, and that we would even be prepared to increase aid. In that way we were demonstrating our wish to have friendship with the people and Government of Somalia. However, I pointed out that this did not mean we could underwrite it by supplying arms to support the action taken in Ogaden.