Ceremonies at the Gate of Sorrows

France, which once ruled nearly half of Africa, gave up its last formal foothold on the continent this week. At a Sunday midnight ceremony in the decaying Red Sea city of Djibouti, a new flag of blue, green, white and red replaced the French Tricolor atop a floodlit pole at the high commissioner's residence overlooking the mud flats at the edge of Djibouti harbor. As a 21-gun salute boomed out and fireworks lit up the night sky, the French Territory of the Afars and Issas (T.F.A.I.) became the Republic of Djibouti, Africa's 50th independent state. The most notable visitor present at the celebrations: President Valery Giscard d'Estaing, who was scheduled to fly in from Paris for a few hours to offer congratulations. The newborn republic faces a most uncertain future. Last week TIME Nairobi Bureau Chief Lee Griggs visited Djibouti and cabled this report:

Dirt-poor Djibouti is a New Hampshire-sized chunk of harsh, heat-seared desert and mountains populated by roughly 220,000 people, mostly impoverished nomads whose average cash income is less than $50 a year. Djibouti comes to independence, after 115 years of French rule, with only three college graduates, no industry other than a pair of soft-drink plants, no agriculture whatever and an export trade restricted to hides and skins (goats outnumber people by better than 2 to 1). "If it were anywhere else," says an Arab diplomat in Djibouti town (pop. 140,000), "nobody would care about this godforsaken place. But because it is where it is, Djibouti matters to many, from neighbors to superpowers."

The barren territory is located on the western shore of the 17-mile-wide strait called Bab el Mandeb ("gate of sorrows" in Arabic), which links the Red Sea with the Indian Ocean. More than 70 ships, including many oil tankers, pass through the strait every day, to and from the southern end of the Suez Canal. Moderate Arab states bordering the Red Sea--Egypt, Sudan and Saudi Arabia--fear that the Soviet Union, already well established on the eastern side of the strait in the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, may have designs on Djibouti in a move to control both shore lines. There is speculation in Djibouti's seedy bars that Moscow has not tried to establish diplomatic ties with independent Djibouti because the Kremlin may have already marked the territory for eventual disappearance--perhaps in a partition by the new republic's neighbors, Somalia and Ethiopia, which are both pro-Moscow but feuding bitterly with each other.

Ethnic Interest. Somalia's interest in Djibouti is primarily ethnic, for the majority Issa tribe in the territory is Somali-speaking. Ethiopia's stake is economic: 60% of its foreign trade moves via Djibouti's deepwater port; a rickety, 60-year-old railroad connects it with Addis Ababa. Both countries deny any annexation designs, but neither trusts the other's disclaimers. Nor do Djibouti's new rulers. Says Ahmed Dini, 45, president of the newly elected National Assembly: "The Somalis and Ethiopians are at swords' points now, but what is to prevent them some day from getting together and carving us up?" Last month Somalia-supported guerrillas operating inside southern Ethiopia blew up the Addis-Djibouti rail line in three places, closing it indefinitely. That was a serious blow to the economy of Djibouti, which depends on Ethiopia not only for customs and transit revenues but also for its fruit and vegetables. On the eve of independence, local markets were virtually bereft of produce.

Paris currently pours about $140 million a year into Djibouti, but most of this aid is in the form of vastly inflated salaries or perks for French soldiers and civil servants. Fully 80% of that money is ultimately re-exported to European bank accounts. The territory's operating budget is a mere $25 million a year, and the French have never seen fit to provide a development budget. But they pay their own people extraordinarily well for serving two-year terms in the harsh climate, where daytime temperatures often top 115DEG. A junior sergeant serving in Djibouti can make nearly $20,000 a year, up to four times what he might earn in France. "They come here to serve their time, make their pile for a house or plot of ground back home, and then leave with it," says a British shipping agent who has lived in Djibouti many years. "They get rich and Djibouti gets nothing. That's not enlightened colonialism. It's a bloody rip-off."

Much of the big French bureaucracy is already packing up, though many civil servants will stay on to advise the new government. There will be a gradual reduction, probably by two-thirds, of the permanent military force of 6,000--including 1,500 crew-cut (and mostly German) members of the 13th Demibrigade of the famed Foreign Legion. Shopkeepers in Menelik Square hope the legionnaires will stay on. "They raise hell in drunken brawls and bust up a bar now and then," says one, "but at least they spend what they make here. Most of it is for drinking or whoring, but they spend it." One scar-faced Legion major seems willing enough. He shrugs and says, "The booze and the broads are as good here as anywhere."

Weary Sigh. The nature of the French postindependence presence in Djibouti awaits negotiation between Paris and the infant republic's new President, Hassan Gouled, 61, a veteran politician who agitated for Djibouti's independence for nearly 30 years. Now that it is here, he does not seem very enthusiastic about it. "We shall survive somehow," he says with a weary sigh. "The Saudis have promised to help, and France will not abandon us entirely. We have few people and almost no resources, but we will get by as long as our neighbors leave us alone."

On the eve of independence, Djibouti showed little evidence of joy--perhaps because there is not much to celebrate in a city that has 80,000 job seekers for only 10,000 jobs. French troops turned over a few barracks to the Djibouti army, but only after removing air conditioners, overhead fans and even fuses in an unnecessary show of Gallic arrogance. Some of the decrepit, stone, Arab-style buildings downtown got a new coat of whitewash, and a few strings of colored lights went up. But five days before the festivities no flags of the new republic were in evidence. They were being made in France and would not arrive until the last minute.

Djiboutians consoled themselves, as always, by chewing on kat (pronounced, roughly, cot), a mild narcotic leaf imported by air--because it loses its kick 72 hours after picking--from Ethiopia at the staggering rate of seven tons a day. A cheekful of kat, they say, provides something of a high, makes them care less about heat and hunger, gives a general feeling of happiness, and enhances sexual potency. A local post office clerk, assessing the future with what appears to be typical lack of concern, shifts his chaw to the other cheek and says. "If things go bad, we will simply chew more kat, so we won't care as much. There is not much else we can do."

As a warning to the republic's neighbors that they should not interfere with Djibouti before independence, France beefed up the garrison with 1,000 extra paratroopers and legionnaires. The carrier Foch came steaming into the harbor, a symbol of both celebration and precaution. For a time after independence, the French will continue to guard the republic's frontiers against aggression (the Somalian border is only ten miles from downtown Djibouti, Ethiopia a mere 50 miles away). But diplomats here speculate that France will withdraw entirely if a major struggle erupts over Djibouti, rather than risk involvement in a Red Sea war. Djibouti's domestic deterrent force--600 soldiers, 1,500 border guards and 1,000 gendarmes--is hardly able to handle an invasion. If one develops, Djiboutians might be best advised simply to chew a little kat and hope for the best.

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