Since the Algiers OAU Summit last Summer, the minority controlled government in Ethiopia has had the OAU and the international community on a wild goose chase about prospects for peace in the Horn region. After five months of fruitless chase, there's no realistic possibility of peaceful settlement in sight. Instead, Ethiopia keeps refining its "no war, no peace" strategy hoping to force Eritrea spend down its resources on national defence. The regime in Addis Ababa is simply not interested in making peace. It has, on the other hand, completed preparation for resumption of the war on a scale far larger than anything the region has seen before.
The OAU has made every accommodation possible in pursuit of the hopelessly illusive peace deal. It has wrangled every procedural concession imaginable from Eritrea, but apparently not enough to satisfy TPLF's insatiable appetite for more and more concessions. What Ethiopia wanted was what the OAU could not give: the total abandonment of the OAU Charter. With the OAU and the international community totally stymied by TPLF's intransigence, the options for a peaceful solution are getting narrower. The time has now come to cut the chase, call it quits, and move on to the next phase- providing Eritrea with resources to ameliorate the deleterious effects of the "no war, no peace" strategy on Eritrea's economy and society, and to impose economic sanctions against the TPLF regime. The international community, through the United Nations Security Council must use the tools at its disposal to force the rogue state into compliance with international norms.
The international community ought to give up any pretence that the regime in Addis Ababa could be persuaded to accept peace. To assume that it could is to pretend that the regime prefers peace to war. It does not. The regime is scared of making peace, because it cannot survive one. With peace comes accountability: taking responsibility for past actions, policies and practices. The regime which represents a mere six percent of the Ethiopian population has to stand before the other ninety four percent to defend why it allowed a containable minor border dispute to explode into a murderous and ultimately senseless war. Thus staying on the warpath is a self-preservation strategy even if that means disastrous consequences for Ethiopia, Eritrea and the region.
For the sake of the people of the region the world community has to admit that it has been dealing with is an outlaw regime that feels unconstrained by the standards of modern statecraft. Where else but in hard luck Ethiopia would a handful of Marxists held sway over the fate of sixty million citizens? The OAU and the international community should have learned this much about the minority government in Addis Ababa. They did not. That's why we are where we are now: on the brink of another senseless war. The people of the Horn deserve better. They have been misled into thinking that the international community was negotiating with a regime that plays by international rules and norms. Now they know it has not been the case. The time has come to impose economic sanctions to force the Addis Ababa regime to modify its behavior.
The international community has invested a lot of time trying to convince Ethiopia that peace was in everyone's interest. Ethiopia professed interest in making peace. It asked for time to study the OAU proposal, a proposal it once had enthusiastically endorsed. Then it asked for technical clarifications, to be followed by additional request for semantic clarifications. Then clarifications were sought on the last clarifications. The mediators have been dealing with endless requests for clarifications accompanied by never ending new demands. Every step of the way the OAU, complied, refusing to admit that Ethiopia had other ideas in mind. By taking the OAU on a pointless chase, and the OAU meekly taking the bait, Ethiopia has bought valuable time to refine its "no war, no peace" strategy and to train, recruit and arm, a one million strong army for an eventual attack against Eritrea. The OAU and the donor community have fallen into Ethiopia's trap at Eritrea's expense.
The strategy was deceptively simple: force Eritrea to spend down its resources to reduce its military capability. Then move on for the kill at the right moment. The strategy was accompanied by a crude psychological warfare against Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean heritage residents of Ethiopia. The deportation of 1400 Eritreans on Christmas Day, in addition to the 67,000 uprooted from previous deportations was meant to send a message, although what message one cannot say other than an expression of TPLF's wretched meanness. Surely the strategy has glaring flaws, but that did not seem to bother the Mekele strategic thinkers who put the model together. There is a reason for their optimism.
By employing the old "divide and rule" concept made famous by Ethiopian rulers of the past, the TPLF government has sought to divide the OAU from the United Nations Security Council, and particularly the U.S. It's an old ploy very much practiced by Ethiopian rulers. Prime Minister Meles's government has belatedly tried to draw a distinction without a difference, between the Framework Agreements and the Technical Arrangements. The Prime Minister has complained that the Technical Arrangements were put together outside of the OAU , while the Framework Agreements, he said, were approved by the OAU Heads of State. He said Ethiopia would remain loyal to the document approved by the OAU but not to the one put together by "outsiders," meaning the U.S. This is a specious argument as the Prime Minister knows very well that the OAU Chairman who the Heads of State gave the sole authority to interpret the Frameworks, has endorsed the Technical Arrangements as embodying the letter and spirit of the Framework Agreements. But by raising interminable questions about the Technical Arrangements, the Ethiopian government has been able to buy more time to give its "no war, no peace" strategy more time to work. The surprise here is not that Ethiopia has been employing the ploy with so much success, rather the real surprise is why it took the OAU and the donor community such a long time to uncover Ethiopia's not so secret real intention of doing away with the peace plan.
The outlines of the model the OAU and the donor community have unwittingly given more time to work are easy to see-to use Ethiopia's larger demographic and resources base to outlast Eritrea in a protracted war. The demographic illusion they operated under was based on nothing but a morbid smugness that they could afford to lose more people in the battlefield than does Eritrea. Their insensitivity to the loss of lives could be traced to their indifference to the fortunes of ethnic groups other than their own. One has to wander why their capacity to absorb more body counts could remotely considered a strategic asset that they could use for their benefit. As for their faith in their resources endowments, it's hard to take them seriously when under their watch Ethiopia has earned the dubious distinction as one of the poorest countries in the world.
The model's chief attributes were cleverness and deceit. Deep down they knew they lacked the resources for the war effort, but they thought they could get it through guile and deceit. The model assumed a constant flow of international assistance to finance Ethiopia's development projects, and routine governmental functions, while Ethiopia diverted her resources to the war effort without attracting the donors' attention to the misuse of their assistance. This way Ethiopia could hide the financial cost of the war from its own public by shifting the burden to the donor community. Naively the donor community obliged thinking that as long as the regime was pursuing peace providing assistance was the right thing to do. Of course the regime was never serious about its pursuit for peace; it was just a ruse to extract more and more resources for the war effort.
Ethiopia's war planners underestimated the cost of the military build-up while underestimating Eritrea's capacity for developing effective counter measures; they overestimated their capacity to generate revenues internally; and they exaggerated the donors continuing willingness to pump resources into the war effort. Looking at the latest Ethiopian economic figures, it appears all scenarios occurred, perhaps simultaneously, causing the current account deficit to go out of whack. Eritrea put up stiff military resistance. Revenue from coffee exports was less that expected. By some estimates the war is costing Ethiopia US$1million per day. And much to TPLF's the dismay and occasional rage, donors are reacting negatively to Ethiopia's intransigence in the search for peace so much so that some donors are either withholding or delaying assistance.
Ethiopia's current financial and economic situation is such that had it not been for the donor community, the economy runs the risk of running on empty. Ethiopia cannot balance its current account deficit without international financing. The country has a huge debt overhang. It needs debt relief. Without a huge subsidy from the donor community year in and year out, Ethiopia cannot meets its annual budgetary obligations, including for routine government operations. The war, that Prime Minister Meles once bragged could be conducted at a painless cost to Ethiopia, is adding hundreds of millions to the annual deficit. The precariousness of Ethiopia's economic situation and the degree to which Ethiopia is dependent on resources transfer provides the donor community with the leverage they need to force Ethiopia to change its outlaw behavior.
Data on Ethiopia's budget show the degree to which Ethiopia is dependent on external financing, and that if the donors were to act in concert to stop, say a quarter of the aid, there will be no way for Ethiopia to finance the war from domestic sources. No way this can be done. Not when current and future coffee earnings have been mortgaged to pay for Russian fighter planes, helicopters, tanks and other assorted military hardware. Not with at lest 8 million people I need of emergency aid; 3 million HIV/AIDS positive, 900 thousand children orphaned by AIDS to be cared for, while supporting a military force one million strong. All of these needs cannot be met on a US$110 per capita. No way. Ethiopia knows its economy has been running on empty. It also knows that it is vulnerable to economic sanctions, if one were to be imposed for the sake of peace.
A few weeks ago, Ethiopia's finance Minister, Ato sufian Ahmed, announced 800 million birr deficit for the year (about US100 million at current exchange rate). The deficit could have come from many sources, although the most likely was shortfall of US$153 million, from coffee export earnings. The government had expected to take in US$420 million in 1998. But the actual total was US$267 million, about two thirds of the expected earnings. A combination of lower prices, lower tonnage, and problems with transportation relating to the war, were the principal reasons for he decline.
Had it not been for the donors' decision to finance Ethiopia's original current account deficit of US$566 million, the war induced deficit of US$153 million would have saddled Ethiopia with a US$719 million total deficit, a very huge considering the entire budget is around US$1.7 billion. If Ethiopia had to finance the entire deficit, it would have found itself in dire straits. The implication is clear. As long as donors are financing Ethiopia's deficit, even when it is induced by the war, Ethiopia has less incentive to go for a peaceful settlement of the border dispute. So far the cost of defying the international community has been minimal for Ethiopia. If the donor community chooses, it has enough leverage to affect Ethiopia's budgetary decisions.
The international donor community is coming through for Ethiopia not only in financing deficits but also in providing financing for sectoral investments and relief debt. At the time the war broke out, Ethiopia had signed agreements with the IMF for donors to cover financing requirements of US$8.6 billion for a three year period, out of which US$2 billion was for sectoral investments and the rest for debt relief. Ethiopia's foreign debt as of 1997 was US$10 billion, or 159 percent of the country's GNP. To meet the debt obligations Ethiopia had budgeted US$605 million for 1998. But like most developing countries that have onerous debt service payments, Ethiopia cannot meet its obligations to its creditors, fund routine governmental operations, and finance development projects, out of domestically generated funds.
Ethiopia's transparent deceit that it is committed for peace while doing everything possible to prepare for the resumption for war is wearing thin. What should have been obvious from the start, is becoming clearer now: that Ethiopia cannot finance its war from internally generated resources. Finally the donor community is well aware of Ethiopia's deceit and intransigence. But more than awareness is needed. People of the Horn need resolute action from the international community to bring the outlaw regime to heel. The pressure points that could be exploited are in Ethiopia's current financial situation. All the elements that can make sanctions a success are in place. If Ethiopia continues to thwart or reasonable efforts to settle the war, the donor community may have no choice but to withdraw its financing support as part of a comprehensive sanctions package for peace.
It is often said that sanctions don't work. It is alleged by some that sanctions are counter productive, and that they hurt the weakest segment of the population. This could very well be true for some, but not all sanctions. Surely there are leaks. There are also unintended consequences. These are unavoidable. But in the main, if there's enough commitment to make them work, sanctions, or the threat of one, can be effective tools. Where sanctions may be less effective are with those situations where the target country has rich natural resources in demand in world markets, and where there are few alternative sources. Sanctions busters would come out of the wood works to frustrate the embargo. And if the domestic market is large enough, there will be enough enterprising traders who would know how to go around imports restrictions, to render sanctions ineffective. Ethiopia's case is different. It has very few unique natural resources that one cannot get from other sources. The domestic market is small, and what's more, as a land locked country imports or exports can easily be monitored. Security Council member France can easily enforce sanctions at Djibouti without any problems.
Paradoxically, the most potent argument against sanctions may be Ethiopia's poverty. But then a poor country should not shop for Su-27 and Mig-29 using development and emergency assistance the donor community has given to the people of Ethiopia. While the government of Ethiopia could use its own money any way it pleased, the donor community ought to have a say how its own money is being used. Therefore, the most crucial reason why and how sanctions could be a potentially effective tool is Ethiopia's dependence on international resources transfer not only for development projects but also for routine governmental operations. If any of the sources are closed, or monitored, Ethiopia would be forced to behave in a responsible manner. The donor community should turn off the spigot that has been pouring resources into the TPLF war machine to force Ethiopia to chose peace over war. Assistance from the donor community has enabled Ethiopia to spend US$1million per day on the unnecessary war while pleading with the same community to send an additional 820,000 tons of food for 8 million of its citizens in need of food aid. Ethiopia has been taking the donor community for a free ride: money for war, and money for food. The time has come for the donor community to open its eyes and see where its money is going.