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SECURITY AND STATE BUILDING IN THE EXPERIENCE
OF THE ITALIAN TRUST ADMINISTRATION IN SOMALIA

recognizing their contribution in the Italo-Ethiopian war in 1936 with the crea-
tion of a governorship of the A.O.I. which united all the Somali peoples on
(27)
both sides of the former Abyssinian border ;
➣ the fluctuating British policy between 1945 and 1954, initially oriented
towards a Greater Somalia project embracing the Ethiopian Ogaden, to hinder
the eventual return of Italy to Somalia; then, the Trust Administration granted,
with the recognition of the Ethiopian sovereignty on a territory used, for cen-

(28)
turies, by about 200,000 Somalis .
In 1948, in fact, when it was now clear that it would go towards entrusting
the trust administration to Italy, Ethiopia agreed with Great Britain a provisional
administrative line, but continued to aspire to a more southern border at the
intersection of the 8th parallel north and the 48th meridian east. At the start of
the A.F.I.S., Italy’s position was to consider the border issue no longer an Italian-
Ethiopian matter but Somali-Ethiopian and that, acting as administrator on
behalf of the UN, the Abyssinian grievances should have been produced exclu-
sively in that forum, Italy being unable to do anything other than to protect
Somali’s rights on the borders as their administrator until a different composi-

tion were to be decided: it was not possible, in accessing the trust administration,
to make Somalis, as a first signal, renounce to territories inhabited from their
peoples when, moreover, their rising nationalism made pan-somalism one of its
main instances. Arnera too, in the aforementioned reconstruction of the tasks
of the Police forces in the first 8 years of the AFIS, reports that the border with
Ethiopia, ideally drawn on paper but not detectable if not very roughly on the ground, favored
large-scale raids by marauders and raiders sometimes coming in hundreds across the border:

within atavistic rivalries, centuries-old struggles among Cabile for issues related to grazing and
watering, exploded continuously in ferocious and bloody clashes: fights, murders, crimes against
the heritage, completed the picture of the situation of order and public safety.

(27) A tal riguardo in un rapporto “segreto” n. 3/19 di prot. del 2 aprile 1951 diretto a AFIS -
Ufficio Affari Interni e CSS, avente ad oggetto “notizie di oltre confine” e redatto dal
Comandante del Gruppo Carabinieri Raoul Brunero, ancora si legge che “Tempo addietro
l’Ugaz Ghedi Dahar, capo degli Afgab, si è presentato alle Autorità italiane della Somalia con
altri capi, per fare atto di amicizia. Poiché le cose erano trapelate oltre confine e si temevano
rappresaglie, egli non ha più lasciato il Territorio e si trova ora a Bardera. Le autorità abissine,
non potendo colpire il capo, si sono rifatte contro i suoi dipendenti razziando il bestiame e
bruciandone i tucul e tutto ciò che vi si trovava dentro (…). I capi e le popolazioni Afgab,
Uafatto e Aden Ker sfuggiti alla cattura, sono molto preoccupati e vorrebbero aiuto
dall’A.F.I.S., specie in armi e munizioni (…). Essi non nascondono una certa delusione con-
statando che le autorità italiane non li appoggiano così apertamente come essi speravano
dopo aver inscenato le dimostrazioni filo-italiane dei capi che sono all’origine delle cose
attuali”. AUSSME, f. I-2, Busta 72, fasc. 605.
(28) DEL BOCA A., Gli Italiani in Africa Orientale, Vol. 4. Nostalgia delle colonie, ed. Laterza, Bari,
1984, pagg. 290-292.

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