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Part 1: Background

In April 2007, a low-intensity conflict between the Ethiopian government and an insurgency movement called the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF),¹ made international news when the rebels attacked an oil site in Somali Regional State, in southeast Ethiopia, capturing and killing more than 70 Chinese and Ethiopian oil workers as well as scores of Ethiopian soldiers. Although the ONLF attack sparked international attention to the region for the first time in decades, Ethiopia’s Somali Region has been a locus of conflict for more than a century.

Although geographically within Ethiopia, the Somali Region’s ethnic Somali population remains culturally and economically intertwined with neighboring Somalia. Conflicts within and over the region have evolved in tandem with many of the 20^th century’s most significant national and regional developments in the Horn of Africa. These include the colonial era division of the Horn’s Somali peoples among what eventually became four different countries²; the creation of Somalia in 1960 and the resulting spur to Somali secessionist movements in neighboring countries; and the 1991 collapse of the Somali state led by Mohamed Siad Barre, just 30 years after its creation. 

A detailed examination of the many complex and contentious events that have influenced the dynamics in Somali Region is beyond the scope of this report. However, the following chapters identify in brief key, background factors and trace the most significant events influencing the evolution of the current armed conflict.

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