October 9, 2006
Djibouti vs Berbera
Once upon a time Ethiopia only had access to one port. If you wanted to get your goods delivered in bulk, you had to pack them in containers and send them through Djibouti.
Then Ethiopia did a deal with Somaliland and its port at Berbera. And suddenly there was competition.
In a matter of months that competition has now turned into a full scale publicity war on the back pages of Addis' English-speaking newspapers.
Buy Fortune or Capital and you can read their regular full-page ads for the Port of Djibouti - 'Djibouti port By Choice' 'At the Crossroads of Three Continents'.
On my map, Berbera is only about an inch further down the Red Sea coast. But it is an important inch. For, according to the ad in the Sub-Saharan Informer, Berbera ("An ancient, modern as well as contemporary port") is "at the junction of [not three but] five continents and the four civilisations of Africa, Arabia, India and Europe".
No mention of the name of the fifth continent. Presumably they mean Antarctica.
Posted by aheavens at October 9, 2006 7:13 PM