The Eritrean Studies Review
Volume 3, Number 2
Special Issue, 1999
Eritrea & Ethiopia: From Conflict to Cooperation to Conflict
- Guest Editor's Introduction
Tekie Fessehatzion
- Eritrea (Mereb-Melash) and Yohannes IV of Abyssinia
Jordan Gebre-Medhin
- A Study of the Evolution of the Eritrean Ethiopian Border
Through Treaties and Official Maps
Ghidewon Abay Asmerom & Ogbazgy Abay Asmerom
- Some Latent Factors in the Ethio-Eritrean Conflict
Kidane Mengistreab
- Mass Expulsion of Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean
Origin From Ethiopia and Human Rights Violations
Gaim Kibreab
- Approaches to Resolve the Conflict Between Eritrea and
Ethiopia
Gebre Hiwet Tesfagiorgis
- Commentary
- The Eritrean-Ethiopian Conflict or How Ethiophilia
Blinded Susan Rice
Saleh A. A. Younis
- Against More Odds: The Second Siege of Eritrea
Dan Connell
- 'The March of Folly' Re-enacted: A Personal View
Alemseged Tesfai
- Explaining the Unexplainable: The Eritrea-Ethiopia
Border War Tekie Fessehatzion
Guest-Editor's Introduction
Tekie Fessehatzion
Eritrea and Ethiopia-From Conflict to Cooperation to Conflict
The Eritrean Studies Review (ESR) occasionally publishes special
issues on themes deemed of special interest to scholars on Eritrea
and other readers of the Review. The Eritrean-Ethiopian border
dispute coming as it did so early in the life of the new Eritrean
state, the Editors decided to produce a special issue of the Review
to explore the dispute in all of its dimensions. The border dispute
raises many issue of relevance to newly independent states with
ill-marked borders. While the resolution of border disputes requires
technical approaches for demarcation purposes, most often the
problem requires a political solution.
As this issue of the ESR went press, Eritrea and Ethiopia have
reaffirmed their acceptance of the OAU Framework Agreement. At
the last OAU Summit held in Algiers, July 12-15, 1999, the two
countries have accepted Modalities for the implementation of the
Framework Agreement. The Modalities offer important sequencing
of the recommendations, a feature lacking in the Framework Agreement.
For the first time the Agreement will stipulate that both sides
agree to a cease-fire before other elements in the Modalities
can be implemented. Subsequently, the OAU, with the help of the
UN and US experts drew up a document called Technical Arrangements,
which is a detailed plan for the implementation of the peace plan.
Eritrea accepted the Technical Arrangements right away while Ethiopia
at first asked for clarifications, and, once the clarifications
were given by the OAU, continues to drag its feet and bring new
preconditions that were not in the original plan. Whether the
Algiers Agreement will lead to a peaceful resolution to the border
conflict is an open question, for reasons addressed in several
of the papers in this issue. As several of the authors have indicated
the dispute encompasses more than questions of territory. The
dispute is about whether Eritrea will remain in its current form-as
an independent and sovereign state. The authors, coming from several
disciplines, have examined the dispute in its multiple dimensions.
In his insightful lead article, "Eritrea (Mereb-Melash) And
Yohannes IV of Abyssinia," Jordan Gebre-Medhin has taken a historical
approach in identifying the source of the Eritrea-Ethiopia border
dispute: the revival of Tigrayan hegemonic ambition. Jordan sees
a direct link between Emperor Yohannes IV's repeated invasions
of Eritrea (then known as Mereb-Melash) during the last century
and the TPLF's intermittent forays into Eritrea since May 1998.
As was the case with Emperor Yohannes, the TPLF, faced with a
perennially resource-poor Tigray, was compelled to go outside
its base to accumulate resources to build its political and military
power. Emperor Yohannes and the TPLF made extensive use of Oromo
peasants as the bulk of their army in their invasion of Mereb-Melash
(Eritrea). Jordan argues that Abyssinia's centralized states,
including Emperor Yohannes's Ethiopia were "built on the long
distance slave trade predominantly from the populous Oromo region
of the present Empire." The "slaves" were shipped to the Middle
East, Europe and North America through the Red Sea. Thus control
of Eritrea was vital for Emperor Yohannes of Tigray's principal
export-"slaves" from Oromo land which he used to finance firearms
to keep him in power. But, as Jordan has noted, events beyond
the control of Emperor Yohannes diminished the role of the Red
Sea in the slave trade. The Egyptian control of Massawa, the rise
of the Mahdist movement in the Sudan, and the control of Oromo
land by Amhara Abyssinian groups reduced to a trickle the flow
of slave trade through the Red Sea. Furthermore, it left Emperor
Yohannes isolated and weak. According to Jordan, it is in this
"convoluted context" that Emperor Yohannes's determination to
control Eritrea by any means necessary must be understood. For
Yohannes to maintain his power, the occupation of Eritrea with
its rich and long shoreline was a sine qua non. To accomplish
this task Yohannes sent Ras Alula to the then Mereb-Melash where
the Ras met stiff resistance from the local population. The same
logic that propelled Emperor Yohannes in the late nineteenth century
to attempt to subjugate Eritrea-to control access to the sea-appears
to guide the TPLF now. And just as Yohannes met with resistance
in Eritrea, so will the TPLF, a group that seems to have learned
nothing from Emperor Yohannes's disastrous Eritrean experience.
The TPLF's inability to learn from history will lead to the ultimate
destruction of Mekele's political and military power.
To the extent the Eritrea-Ethiopia conflict is about an "ill
marked" border, one wants to know, first, how the current border
evolved; two, where the possible problem areas could be located;
and three, in what specific ways the border meets or fails to
meet the standard of inviolability expressed in the Organization
of African Unity Cairo Charter of 1964. These very important questions
are handled with skill and comprehensiveness by Ghidewon Abay
Asmerom and Ogbazgy Abay Asmerom in "A Study of the Evolution
of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Border through Treaties and Maps." Ghidewon
and Ogbazgy provide a useful primer on how borders are "delimited,"
and "demarcated," and how Africa's borders evolved over time.
Their primary focus, however, remains the 1000-Km long Eritrea-Ethiopia
border. They also test the extent to which the current border
meets the OAU inviolability standard. According to Ghidewon and
Ogbazghy the common border evolved over a period of 18 years (1890-1908)
and was validated by three treaties: 1900, 1902, and 1908. Two
of the treaties (1900 and 1908) were signed between King Menelik
II of Ethiopia and the Italians. The third (1902) was done between
the British, Menelik II, and the Italians. The border as defined
and delimited by the three treaties remained unchanged and unchallenged
for 89 years (1908-1997). Lastly, United Nations General Assembly
Resolution 390(V) of December 2, 1950 and the first Eritrean Constitution
as ratified by Emperor Haile Selassie in September 11, 1952 reaffirmed
the validity of the Italian-era border. The challenge to the colonial
border came from the Tigray Administrative State and its 1997
map that incorporated swaths of land previously on Eritrea's side
of the border. Ghidewon and Ogbazgy try to answer the degree to
which the 1997 Tigray map principally violates the spirit and
letter of the OAU Cairo Declaration of 1964, about the sanctity
of inherited colonial borders. While the border might have been
"ill marked," Ghidewon and Ogbazgy remind us that does not mean
the border was "ill defined," noting carefully that for the most
part "delimitation" (definition) was consistent with the treaties.
If this is the case, and Ghidewon and Ogbazghy have persuasively
demonstrated that it is, then the solution lies in a careful demarcation
of the border on the basis of inherited colonial borders as mandated
by the OAU and international law.
The Eritrea-Ethiopia conflict has baffled laymen and experts
alike. Its suddenness and the ferocity with which the war has
been fought are a mystery even to academics who think they know
the two countries and peoples well. One of the hardest phenomena
to explain for a social scientist is an unfolding event with obscure
beginning and an uncertain ending. Kidane Mengisteab has taken
the challenge of coming up with possible explanations for the
conflict. In his "Some Latent Factors in the Ethio-Eritrea Conflict,"
Kidane examines some possible causes of the conflict. Kidane thinks
a part of the explanation may lie in the duality of TPLF's agenda,
and the degree to which the balance of forces changed between
the proponents of liberating Tigray only and those who felt that
their responsibility included liberating all of Ethiopia. While
the latter group believed cooperating with Eritrea was beneficial
for all of Ethiopia, the former were interested in what was beneficial
for Tigray, first. Given the primacy of ethnonationalism in Ethiopian
politics, it was not long before the proponents of "Tigray-First"
assumed more power within the TPLF and, hence, within the government.
Kidane has given us an illuminating account of the role of ethnonationalism
in the fragmentation of Ethiopia's common identity and the degree
to which ethnic-based federalism failed to act as a brake to Tigray's
expansionism. The duality of TPLF's agenda has never been tested
empirically, and it is possible that the duality was a mirage
in that the TPLF's real agenda was primacy in Ethiopia as one
way of restoring King Yohannes's rule over the "rest" of Ethiopia.
A subtext of the agenda would include primacy over Eritrea to
control access to the Sea-as Jordan Gebre-Medhin noted -King Yohannes's
obsession. Kidane does not explicitly subscribe to the "control
Ethiopia by controlling Eritrea" thesis, but he believes a constellation
of factors have made confrontation between Ethiopia and Eritrea
unavoidable. Kidane's discussion-of the opportunistic alliance
of one wing of the TPLF with the most passionate opponents of
Eritrea's independence; of Tigray Administration's unilateral
redrawing of the border with Eritrea; and of Mekele's sabotage
of the 1993 Agreement of Friendship and Cooperation between Eritrea
and the Transitional Government of Ethiopia-points to the conclusion
that at some point the TPLF had decided on confrontation with
Eritrea.
One of the most painful side-effects of the conflict is the
deportation of Eritreans and Ethiopian of Eritrean heritage from
Ethiopia. As of last count, over 60,000 have been deported from
their homes in Ethiopia. Given the fact that the population of
Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean heritage in Ethiopia is between
130,000 to 160,000, as of now, two or three out of every five
Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean heritage who were in Ethiopia
before the conflict erupted have been uprooted and deported to
Eritrea. This amounts to ethnic cleansing. Gaim Kibreab's piece,
"Mass Expulsion From Ethiopia of Eritreans and Ethiopians of Eritrean
Origin from Ethiopia and Human Rights Violations," makes a compelling
case that Ethiopia is guilty of a massive human rights violation.
Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has defended his government's actions,
saying that Ethiopia had the right to expel any foreign national.
"No body can prevent us from expelling them because we do not
like them. It is our right," said Prime Minister Meles. As Gaim
has aptly noted, the Prime Minister seems unaware that international
and regional legal instruments prohibit mass expulsions of legal
residents and aliens, and naturalized persons. According to a
survey of the uprooted from Ethiopia conducted by Citizens For
Peace in Eritrea, 70.7 percent of the deported were Ethiopians
of Eritrean ancestry. Another 18.8 percent were permanent legal
residents. Fewer than ten percent lacked formal permanent residence
permits. The strength of Gaim's paper is in the author's use of
international law and human rights covenants to examine Ethiopia's
mass expulsions and how Ethiopia's state actions contravene accepted
international norms. Why did the deportations take place? The
most revealing answer was given to a deportee who reported an
exchanged he had with the police in Addis Ababa who came to take
him from his home. The deportee described his encounter with the
police: "I was picked up at night, thrown into prison, not allowed
time to pack. I asked what my crime was. 'You are an Eritrean,'
they said." For Ethiopian authorities, being an Eritrean was enough
to justify deportation.
Gebre Hiwet Tesfagiorgis, one of the two authors in the Review
with a legal background, uses his training to explore ways of
resolving the border dispute in "Approaches to Resolving the Conflict
Between Eritrea and Ethiopia." Like all the authors in this issue,
Gebre suspects that there may be more to the dispute than differences
on borders. He has taken note of the missed opportunities and
broken promises that have permitted the war to continue in its
murderous ways since May 1998. While the two sides are ultimately
responsible for the war and its consequences, Gebre laments that
the lack of creativity by third-party facilitators in bridging
the gap between the two sides that may have prolonged the war.
Nevertheless, Gebre believes that all effort must be expended
toward resolving the border dispute, knowing full well that it
may take more than agreements on the borders to ameliorate the
long-term effects of the dispute. There are, after all, general
principles of border-dispute resolution applicable to the Eritrean-Ethiopian
border dispute provided both sides are willing to resolve the
conflict. There are also tested conflict-resolution techniques
that have worked satisfactorily in other disputes. Mediation,
for example, works best when there is sufficient trust and confidence
between the two sides in a dispute. Yet, given the history of
the conflict since May 1998 and the subsequent complete break
in relationship, it is doubtful whether mediation will work. Gebre
thinks arbitration and adjudication may work if both parties can
agree beforehand to a set of criteria and to accept the decision
of the arbitrator as final. The key, however, remains that both
sides have to demonstrate a willingness to solve the problem peacefully,
for any conflict resolution technique to work. Gebre believes
that the OAU Framework Agreement provides the best venue possible
for resolving the conflict.
For most of the past sixteen months, the losses in people and
materials in the border war have been horrific. The Organization
of African Unity has been singularly ineffective in stopping the
war. Nor have the United Nations Security Council, or the European
Union done any better. The most inexplicable ineffectiveness,
however, remains that of the United States, given the fact that
the US is a friend of the two nations at war. Why the US failed
to use its influence to stop the war is the subject of Saleh Younis's
incisive paper, "The Eritrean-Ethiopian Conflict: Or How Ethiophilia
Blinded Susan Rice," which is the lead essay of the commentary
section. Saleh's thesis is that inexperience, inattention, and
arrogance at the US State Department exacerbated a situation that
could have easily been resolved. After all, there's nothing uncommon
about border disputes. At the root of the US problem was what
Saleh calls, Ethiophilia, an inordinate devotion to Ethiopia's
cultural and historical "essence" to the extent that devotees
are rendered incapable of making rational decisions about Ethiopia's
shortcomings. Dr. Susan Rice, the academically gifted but experientially
limited Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, has
been a victim of Ethiophilia. Coming in as a neutral party to
bring the two warring sides together, beginning with the earliest
days of the war, Dr. Rice led State Department officials to take
Ethiopia's side. Saleh suggests several reasons for the State
Department's reflexive Ethiophilia, including the following: Ethiopia
was much larger than Eritrea and, in an eventual military showdown,
Ethiopia was likely to be the winner. In the mind of State Department
officials, it was in Washington's interest to side with the winner;
Ethiopia is perceived as a multi-party democracy, Eritrea as a
one-party state. If concessions had to be made, the US officials
believed Eritrea should make them. Ethiopia's democracy is too
fragile to handle concessions. Therefore, Eritrea had to be forced
to make concessions to help Prime Minister Meles. Eritrea refused,
and the US practically walked away, leaving the parties to slug
it out. The US, said Saleh, put up its "Do Not Disturb" sign and
went to sleep. After a while, however, even the jaded press noticed
Washington's studied indifference to Africans killing Africans.
Saleh's report covered the first three months of the conflict,
but in policy terms, the period set the direction of the war's
murderous course. After the completion of the Kosovo mission,
Washington has, once again, turned its attention to the Eritrean-Ethiopian
border dispute. Working through the OAU Summit in Algiers, July
12-15, 1999, the US has persuaded Eritrea and Ethiopia to accept
Modalities of implementation to the OAU Framework Agreement, giving
the US one more opportunity to dispense with Ethiophilia and play
the honest broker's role, thus making up for its past failure.
Dan Connell is the doyen of reporters on Eritrea. Few non-Eritreans
have his encyclopedic and eyewitness knowledge about the long
armed struggle that led to Eritrean independence. His "Against
More Odds: the Second Siege of Eritrea" is an eerie reminder that
perhaps the war for Eritrean independence is not yet finished.
More than any other reporter or academic commentator, Connell
explains persuasively why the EPLF-TPLF alliance broke down and
why it led to war. As Connell sees it, when the two liberation
movements were fighting Mengistu Hailemariam, the EPLF issued
a position paper that called on the TPLF to eschew its narrow
"Tigray-only" nationalism and to start thinking about a broader,
multi-ethnic, and inclusive progressive agenda for Ethiopia's
development. The TPLF, still under the grip of the pro-Albania
Marxist Leninist League of Tigray, lashed out at the EPLF as "petit-bourgeois
nationalist." More ominously for their future relations, the TPLF
decided that its alliance with EPLF would remain tactical-for
convenience. According to Connell, the current confrontation is
about the Tigrayans' desire to replace Eritrea as the dominant
force in the Horn region. But the fighting also brought other
issues to the surface, including the fact that Eritrean independence
has left Ethiopia landlocked, a loss to which many Ethiopians
are still unreconciled. The war thus has brought Tigrayans, who
wish to dominate Eritrea, into alliance with other Ethiopians
who dream of recovering one of the seaports. Dan Connell's commentary
also covers the tortured peace negotiations of the past sixteen
months. He admits that the US had bungled the negotiations by
appearing to be on Ethiopia's side, thus losing Eritrea's confidence.
Dan Connell warns that unless a durable peace is found, the entire
Horn region is in for a nasty upheaval.
Alemseged Tesfay is the second contributor to the volume with
a legal background. But luckily for lovers of Tigrinya literature,
Alemseged abandoned law for history, literature, and the theater.
There's a glimpse of his literary gift in his paper, " 'The March
of Folly' Re-enacted: A Personal View." The paper combines two
of Alemseged's passions-history and vividly expressed observations.
He takes as a starting point what Tuchman called The March of
Folly, the tendency of powerful states to act contrary to common
sense and self-interest, and to pursue the policy even if it leads
to the states' destruction. Alemseged uses Tuchman's framework
to explore how successive regimes in Ethiopia were obsessed with
subjugating Eritrea, and how, in the end, their obsession contributed
to their fall. Emperor Haile Selassie was a victim of such Folly;
so was Mengistu Haile Mariam; and eventually so will Prime Minister
Meles Zenawi. Alemseged, a veteran EPLF fighter knows very well
what he is talking about. A published historian of the Eritrean
independence struggle, he has a keen understanding of why and
how Emperor Haile Selassie and Mengistu regimes fell. As a fighter
who interacted with TPLF cadres in the 70s and 80s, he has an
uncanny insight about the psychological make-up of Ethiopia's
current leaders. With his gift for language he has the capacity
to express ideas and observations that go to the heart of an issue.
He is convinced that Prime Minister Meles is fighting the war
for the same reason Emperor Haile Selassie and Mengistu fought
theirs-for control of Eritrea, wholly, or in part. Perhaps Alemseged
could have stretched his analogy to the nineteenth century and
would have discovered that the Ethiopian March of Folly started
with King Yohannes and Ras Alula. Each of these governments with
ambitions over Eritrea fell. In the end Eritrea survived. And
it will continue to survive.
The last paper in the volume is Tekie Fessehatzion's "Explaining
the Unexplainable: the Ethiopian-Eritrean Border War." My thesis
is that the war has been instigated by local TPLF officials to
advance a purely Tigrayan interest. The rest of the Ethiopian
Federation had no prior knowledge about the border dispute. Later
the dispute was given a different coloration. Portrayed by TPLF
as Eritrea's attack on Ethiopia's sovereignty, the rest of the
Ethiopian Federation joined in what they thought was a defense
of Ethiopia. The dispute was intentionally mischaracterized to
permit the TPLF to draw on Ethiopia's resources to fight a war
for Tigray's benefit. As Jordan Gebre-Medhin has shown in his
stimulating essay in this volume, the TPLF is following in the
footsteps of King Yohannes IV from the nineteenth century in using
Ethiopia's resources to advance Tigray's hegemonic ambition in
the region. The paper details how an easily solvable border dispute
was intentionally escalated to a full-scale war with the expectation
that Eritrea lacked the resource and population base to fight
Ethiopia and win. The TPLF expected to win the war and, after
that, to install a government in Eritrea that would take directions
from Makele. This was the plan. It did not work out as planned
for the reasons Jordan gives in his essay.
Finally, it should not be forgotten that there are important
questions that have to be answered when this current war is over.
Why, for example, was the Eritrean public shocked to discover
that Eritrea and Ethiopia were at war? There was very little inkling
that Eritrea and Ethiopia were having a problem, although (as
came to light later) a crisis had been brewing along the common
border. Had the public been informed about the emerging crisis,
and had public discussion been held on the issue, is it possible
that the dispute would have been avoided? No one knows the answer
to this question, but at least the events of May 6 , 1998 would
not have come as a shock. The war has mobilized the Eritrean public
to a degree not seen since the height of the independence struggle.
It has brought the public and the government closer than at any
time since 1993. To a very large extent the war has exposed the
fragility of Eritrean independence and sovereignty and the degree
to which powerful forces in Ethiopia remain unreconciled to an
"Eritrea-less" Ethiopia. The ever-present external threat for
Eritrea's sovereignty has important consequences to the fledgling
democratization process. Whether the threat will stifle or invigorate
the process is something that needs to be carefully watched.
