Ethiopia and Eritrea are on the verge of another war. This time, the fault lies squarely on the shoulders of the would-be peacemakers, the OAU and its bungling partners. After two years of fruitless shuttle diplomacy, foot dragging and interminable clarifications on this proposal or that, the peace process has reached at a fork on the road: one leads to peace, the other points to war. Recent actions by the mediators have telegraphed a false hope to one side that intransigence pays, while engendering a loss of faith on the other that diligence to a process on behalf of a just peace does not pay. Sadly, the two indications point clearly that we are dangerously slouching towards a resumption of the war.
At this very moment when the two heavily armed forces are staring at each other, eye ball to eye ball, and in many places separated by not more than 200 meters, the window of opportunity for a peaceful settlement is closing down fast. The process appears derailed because the facilitators moved from honest brokers to tacit partisans, forsaking their pledge that they would be evenhanded. Subsequently one side to the dispute, the TPLF government feels that it no longer has to make the necessary compromises, while Eritrea feels whether the derailed process can be righted in time to avoid the resumption of war. A celebration of triumphalism based on the misplaced belief that inflexibility pays, while flexibility for the sake of a just peace does not, provide a combustible mix that could lead to war. The responsibility for concocting the mix lies squarely with the OAU and its partners.
The region is staring at another mega tragedy because the facilitators lacked the guts to stand behind their own proposal for peace, a proposal they designed and promoted for almost two years. They devised an implementation plan that they said was not amendable. Then when one of the parties--Ethiopia, balked after seven months of heehawing, the facilitators buckled under. They initiated a process of changing what they said was unchangeable, except they denied that was what they were doing. As architects of the implementation plan, it's not that they did not have every right to change the plan. Except simple fairness dictates that they have to be transparent about it. If you open it for one, you have to open it to the other. If not, your neutrality goes out of the window. You have taken sides, in which case, you have outlived your usefulness. You are no longer a peacemaker.
If you can't get the job done, simply admit defeat and move on. Let others try their hand. But give people a break: spare them your boundless intellectual arrogance. Don't tell them the peace process is moving forward when they see that the heavy-terrain vehicle you are driving is stuck on reverse gear. How can you say it is climbing when it's going downhill? This is adding insult to injury. Something is not making sense. You are denying people hope that an honorable peaceful settlement is possible. And if you do, you are forcing them to go to war.
What we have here is a lethal mix of the OAU's legendary incompetence and the partners' terminal arrogance, liberally interspersed with their smug assumption that they know better than anyone else. This is a peculiar affliction American diplomacy has suffered from since the post war era, an affliction that continues to hit a disproportionate number of diplomats regardless of race or gender, or the mount of book learning they bring to the job. Right from the start it should have been obvious to everyone that the people sent to bring peace were not cut out for the job for a lack of practical experience about the region and its history. Now, with time running out on their tenure in office, they are trying to appease their way out. It won't work. Appeasement never pays; never did, and never will.
Without actually saying so, the OAU and its partners view the TPLF government as a hostage taker that would think nothing about turning Ethiopia into a non-governable mess if it did not get its way. So in a way, the OAU and its partners are counting on Eritrea's acquiescence to pacify the TPLF's expansionist ambition, and hence save Ethiopia. But more than anything else they want to avoid another war by appeasing the TPLF, in part to salve its conscience that another war did not breakout under its watch, and in part to save Ethiopia from TPLF's folly at Eritrea's expense.
The OAU's partners are intent in using their unlimited power in the U.N Security council and elsewhere to dictate an implementation plan acceptable to the TPLF even if in its scope and thrust the plan goes against the heart and soul of the OAU Charter--the inviolability of colonial borders. How mistaken can they be! What they will be leaving behind is really a house of cards that they know would be blown away, as soon as they leave office. Obviously they don't seem to mind that because they can always blame it on the "irresponsibility" of Africans. How unfair. Who will pay the price for their arrogant misuse of power once they are back to their cushy private sector jobs?
The TPLF knows that the threat of sanction for flouting international norms is empty because no one will sanction a country engulfed by uncontrollable fire and ravaged by famine. The West will do whatever it takes to see that the 1984-5 famine does not reoccur. Famine and a raging fire that on the surface seem to have the attributes of biblical curse on an unlucky land have perversely become the TPLF government's trump card. Deep down the West knows that given the choice between feeding its hungry or persecuting the war to gut the peace package on the table, the minority controlled government would let its people starve.
You know it's topsy-turvy world when a rogue is rewarded and the law abiding, punished. The TPLF government has learned that as long as it acts as a rogue state unencumbered by the norms of international law, and it habitually threatens to resort to force if it did not get its way in the face of massive famine fire devouring the country, very likely the OAU and its partners will surrender. And surrender they did. Eritrea acted as the responsible party. And what did it get in return? More and more demands for concessions to which Eritrea complied for the sake of a just peace, until nothing is left to concede but its sovereignty. It took a war to affirm Eritrea's sovereignty, and it may require another to defend it. If that is the case, so be it.
Surely the people of Eritrea have given their government a carte blanche to negotiate a real peace, but there's a limit what price Eritrea should pay for a peace that may not last. . It is true that Eritreans are tired of the war, but not too tired enough to surrender their sovereignty. On this point there's total unanimity between the public and the government and for any one looking for a wedge, the search will be futile, a waste of time. The OAU and its partners should be disabused of any notion that the Eritrean government will ram an unfair proposal down the throat of its people to strengthen the "moderate" faction of the TPLF, as Washington wistfully assumes. Firstly there are no moderates or radicals in the TPLF on the question of peace with Eritrea. They are all of one faction: rejectionists. Trying to put together a proposal that meets their demands is inherently a non-starter, and should not even be a consideration. The search should be for a fair plan that stays within the parameters of the OAU Charter. Anything less is a recipe for disaster, not for this generation but always for the ones that come after.
Can the process be mended before it is too late to stop the next war? It can, provided the OAU and its partners return to their previous position as evenhanded facilitators whose sole interest is working for a lasting peace between Ethiopia and Eritrea.