June 23rd 2016

Event

Yemane Gebreab, an adviser to the Eritrean president, Isaias Afewerki, told the UN Human Rights Council on June 21st that Ethiopia was "contemplating full-scale war" against Eritrea. This follows a violent clash on the Eritrea/Ethiopia border in mid‑June, after which each government blamed the other for instigating the clash and claimed to have inflicted heavy losses on their opponent.

Analysis

The outbreak of fighting takes place against the backdrop of pugnacious relations between the two neighbours. But since the violent border dispute of 1998‑2000, this usually manifests as a war of words: the Ethiopian government accuses Eritrea of destabilising the region by supporting rebel movements, while the Eritrean government accuses Ethiopia of masterminding an international conspiracy to avoid implementing the UN-backed border delineation that was agreed in 2002. Mr Gebreab told the UN that Ethiopia was now sending "massive [military] reinforcements" to the border, but Ethiopia's communication minister, Getachew Reda, reported that he does not expect the situation to escalate.

The absence of a demarcated border, a legacy of conflict and the presence of armed rebels make the Eritrea/Ethiopia border a volatile region, with the clash in mid‑June demonstrating that there is a continuing risk of violent flare-ups. However, the resumption of a full-scale war is in our view still unlikely, since neither side stands to gain; the government of Ethiopia is unlikely to risk its reputation as an investment destination on a long-running border dispute, and the Eritrean government probably acknowledges that it would struggle to defeat Ethiopia militarily. Plus, aside from hardline elements within both regimes, there is little appetite among foot soldiers in either country for a resumption of war. Meanwhile, the international community is likely to remain non-committal over the issue; Ethiopia has failed to implement the UN-backed border agreement, but pushing it to do so would mean supporting the Eritrean regime (which stands accused of crimes against humanity) at the expense of an Ethiopian regime that has been praised for delivering a development success story.

Impact on the forecast

Reports (albeit unconfirmed) of the build-up of military resources on the border raise the risk of violent outbreaks, which we will reflect in our next forecasts. However, we retain our view that sporadic clashes will not lead to a crossborder war, since neither side stands to gain, and we continue to expect the tensions to manifest mostly as bellicose rhetoric and unverifiable accusations.