It is my distinct privilege to attend an esteemed gathering such as this. May I take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to the organizers of this event, particularly the Center for Strategic Decision Research, for devoting the entire event to the Ethio-Eritrean conflict.

As I was pondering a few days ago over what I needed to say at this conference, I suddenly remembered reading somewhere that conflicts are always in the minds of men, not on the ground; disputes over an object or a piece of land are simply external representations of what are already in the minds of men. This apt notation does indeed find saliency in the case confronting this conference. How else could one explain the sacrifice of tens of thousands of combatants at the war fronts and the social dislocation of hundreds of thousands of civilians for the sake of a tiny barren patch of land without understanding the mind-sets of the antagonists? I must admit that, after thinking long and hard, I have reached the unsavory conclusion that the conflict and the consequent war between Eritrea and Ethiopia over Badame is a superficial representation of something larger that has to do with the mind-set of the Ethiopians in general and the Tigrayan-controlled regime in particular. Before elaborating on this point, I would like to bring two cardinal questions to the attention of the conference.

• First, the fact that the Eritrean Government has unequivocally accepted the Algiers peace plan must be acknowledged in contrast to the intransigence of the Ethiopian regime on the matter. The ball is now in Ethiopia’s court. Therefore, the international community has an obligation to bring sustained pressure to bear on the Ethiopian regime to quit dragging its feet and come to the peace table.

• The second question involves the gross international misperception surrounding the nature and genesis of the conflict. Precisely because they ask the wrong questions, many journalists and even scholars have difficulty understanding how two former stalwart allies could fight over a desolate piece of land. Without a proper diagnosis of the problem, no one could squarely face the challenge of peace in the area.

The Adowa syndrome is the logical frame of reference for Abyssinian fundamentalists as the Amhara and Tigrayans have been socialized into internalizing the doctrine of Ethiopia’s almost boundless territorial reach and self-invincibility. The unavoidable consequence of this syndrome is the belief that only a military solution is the viable option. It is no coincidence that the Ethiopian regime today draws a bogus parallel between Ethiopia’s victory at Adowa in 1896 against the Italians and its seizure of a very tiny piece of land around Badame a year ago. Under the battlecry: "Adowa victory repeated at Badame," the regime temporarily succeeded in calling a million Ethiopians to the streets of Addis Ababa in its attempt to create an unbridgeable gulf btween the peoples of the two countries.

Although the Amhara and the Tigrayans share the belief in "greater Ethiopia ideology," watered by Abyssinian fundamentalism and the Adowa syndrome, there is an additional complicating factor, having to do with the emergence of a bellicose Tigrayan nationalism, one that seeks to establish Tigrayan dominance in Ethiopian politics. We need to recall that until the mid-eighties the Tigray People’s Liberation Front was wholly committed to creating an independent Tigrayan state. However, it soon dawned on the TPLF leadership that Tigray, poorly endowed with natural resources and surrounded by Eritrea on the north and southeast on the one hand, and by the Amhara of Ethiopia on the south and west on the other, could not and would not exist as a viable state. So the TPLF leadership reversed gears and embraced the "greater Ethiopia ideology" as a means of realizing their "greater" Tigray ambition. In order to achieve this desideratum, the TPLF judiciously sought the simultaneous co-optation of Eritrean partnership and containment of the Oromo Liberation Front, the object being effective displacement of the Amhara and establishment of Tigrayan dominance. This strategy was responsible for the TPLF coming to power in Addis Ababa in May 1991.

Knowing full well that the TPLF, representing just 6% of Ethiopia’s 60 million people, could not rule Ethiopia without enforcing horizontal ethnic fragmentation, the leadership devised ethnic federalism as a stratagem to anchor "greater" Tigray within the political framework of "greater Ethiopia. The stratagem allowed the Tigrayans to snatch territories originally belonging to the Amhara provinces of Wello and Gondar under the pretext of ethnic identity. However, the territorial reorganization of "greater" Tigray placed the TPLF leadership in a quandary regarding the question of how to incorporate territories that are within the confines of independent Eritrea.

In addition, the notion of "ethnic federalism" and the TPLF’s involuntary acquiescence in Eritrean independence in exchange for EPLF support soon created a legitimacy crisis for the Tigrayan leadership since the now alienated Amhara conveniently accused the Tigrayans of betraying one of the fundamentals of Abyssinian nationalism, namely the territorial indivisibility of Ethiopia, by allowing Eritrean independence to take place.

As part of the effort to deal with the legitimacy crisis confronting the regime in Addis Ababa, the Tigrayan leadership promptly crafted two complimentary strategies. The first is a minimalist strategy designed to strengthen the position of "greater" Tigray within "greater" Ethiopia by securing an access to the sea through the annexation of Assab, in the southeastern region of Eritrea. The second is the maximalist strategy, bent on enlarging the territorial reach of "greater" Tigray through the reabsorption of the whole of Eritrea while at the same time regaining the entire Red Sea regions of Eritrea for Ethiopia. In effect, the maximalist strategy would undo Eritrea’s independence. Apart from denying their Amhara rivals reason for opposing the Ethiopian regime, the strategy, if realized, would allow the Tigrayan leadership to solidify their grip on power. Herein lies the origins of the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Badame is simply a small outlet for the realization of the larger Tigrayan ambition. The Tigrayan leadership could have invented any other incident to begin a provocation or confrontation with Eritrea. In truth, the fundamental obstacles on the road to peace today are the general Ethiopian mind-set and the virulent nationalism of the Tigrayans. This is something most analysts, scholars and statesmen have failed to understand.

There are also two additional factors that are reinforcing Ethiopia’s intransigence.

• First in the past one-hundred years, Ethiopia has benefited from the services of a galaxy of expatriates, who overtime developed special bonds with Ethiopia and the charming elite of the country. Most of these expatriates have today become the unofficial mouthpiece, propagandists and defenders of the Ethiopian cause. Some of them are in academia, others are in government, and still others are in private policy-making organizations. These international propagandists in the Ethiopian cause are the Pankhursts, the Levines, the Erlichs, the Marcuses, the Claphams, the Heinzes, and Smiths of this world. Because of their expatriate identity and their connection to the world of knowledge and politics, these individuals have been able to effectively orchestrate and legitimize the Ethiopian regime’s dangerously misleading diplomatic maneuvers, thereby obscuring the real cause of the Ethio-Eritrean conflict. They have thus far succeeded in effectively scuttling from the international radar screen the humanitarian dimensions of the conflict, particularly the plight of the over 70,000 Eritreans and Ethiopian nationals of Eritrean origin, deported by the TPLF-led regime after confiscating their hundreds of millions of dollars worth of property. Even as recently as February 17th, 2000, neither President Clinton nor Secretary Albright made a reference to the humanitarian tragedy besetting these deportees in their speeches before the National Summit on Africa. Even the more starkly bizarre thing was the fact that Gail Smith, the Clinton Administration’s Senior Director for Africa and Ethiopia’s mouthpiece within the Administration, never said a word on the ethnic cleansing taking place in Ethiopia despite the fact that the topic of her speech before the National Summit was "Democracy and Human Rights in Africa." It is such callous indifference to the human tragedy that has given the Ethiopian regime a false sense of confidence that it can prevail over the Eritreans in international diplomacy. This has certainly reinforced the belligerently intransigent position of the Tigrayan leadership, making them blind to the larger picture regarding the horrendous consequences of the war.

• The second factor reinforcing Ethiopia’s intransigence is the myopic belief of the Tigrayans that they could militarily prevail over Eritrea because of Ethiopia’s superior endowment in terms of both population and natural resources. The belief is, however, delusional. The truth is that the ratio in the demographic and resource distributions has not changed for in the past thirty years, the ratio in the demographic and economic distributions between Eritrea and Ethiopia was one-to-eighteen, and the same ratio holds today. The previous Ethiopian regime had collected $11 billion worth of military gadgets, and yet it could not prevail over the Eritrean struggle. After all, nations are judged not by how many resources they have but by how they manage their resources in the furtherance of the common good, the welfare of their citizens, and of human understanding and cooperation. We Eritreans may be poor in material resources and small in number; but we are richly endowed with the valor, ingenuity, imagination, and resourcefulness of our people. Perhaps, what distinguishes us from those Ethiopians intoxicated with Abyssinian fundamentalism is the fact that we Eritreans have a sober understanding of the meaning and purpose of life. We deeply mourn over every fallen Eritrean martyr, even more so over our disabled veterans. We never relish the killing of Ethiopian soldiers either. For us, the killing of Ethiopian soldiers is like killing the beloved children of our neighbor in order to save our own children. For us, this is a terrible, awful choice.

• First, both sides must agree to unconditional cease-fire; the recalcitrant side must be placed under sustained international pressure.

• Second, both sides must agree to the insertion of an international force between the two countries to insure observance of the cease-fire.

• Third, both sides must agree to the submission of the border dispute and other outstanding issues between them, including the humanitarian issues, to an international tribunal for arbitration without prior qualifications by either party.

The event was presented by Center for Strategic Decision Research (CSDR) of Menlo Park, California in partnership with Math Science Nucleus/Net Africa, Center for African Studies and Bechtel International Center of Stanford University and Craig Johnson, former peace corps volunteer in Ethiopia.