Behind the Ethiopia-Eritrea clash

Behind the Ethiopia-Eritrea clash

Instead of spearheading “Africa's renaissance”, two of Africa's poorest countries — Ethiopia and Eritrea — have been launching rockets, artillery shells and air strikes at each other in a brutal battle over a barren border area. Mediation efforts have floundered, the fighting has escalated. Ethiopia is detaining and expelling thousands of Eritrean citizens.

Just weeks ago, Ethiopia and Eritrea were seen as the triumphant pioneers of post-Cold War Africa. Touted by the Clinton administration as a “new breed” of African governments that would usher in the long-awaited African renaissance, their free-market economic reforms qualified them for lashings of US aid and investment.

Ethiopia and Eritrea are engaged in a conflict that is less about disputed border areas and more about an internal struggle for control of Ethiopia's ruling coalition and resurgent Ethiopian nationalism.

The immediate dispute has centred on four border areas. Eritrea, which has provided substantial documentation of its claims, says its borders, set down in Ethiopian-Italian agreements at the turn of the century, cannot be redrawn. Ethiopia, despite being challenged to document its claims, has not yet produced its evidence.

The problem is that although on paper the border is quite explicit, on the ground it has not been properly marked, and proprietorship over the regions has remained vague. Badme, one such area, continued to be partially administered by Ethiopia after Eritrean independence. That caused no conflict until last year, when Ethiopia began printing maps that extended its border to include Badme (renaming it Yirga) and sent local police to enforce the new boundary. Eritrea also claims that Ethiopia has tried to colonise the area by moving in thousands of settlers.

Despite the long list of potential mediators, including the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), Libya, Italy, the US, Rwanda and a host of African eminent persons, little has stemmed the escalating war. While Clinton secured a moratorium on air strikes effective June 11, heavy fighting continues on the ground. After Ethiopia's veiled threats to target Eritrean ports, shipping and commercial aircraft, the air moratorium seems untenable without a speedy resolution.

With just 5% of Ethiopia's population of 60 million, and facing Ethiopia's superior air force, standing army and arsenal, Eritrea has held its ground due to its tenacity, self-reliance and efficiency forged during its 30-year war for independence from Ethiopia. Ethiopia has been shelling Eritrean positions, but both sides are dug in along hundreds of kilometres of trenches spread around the disputed areas.

Ethiopia wants Eritrea to withdraw from the disputed border areas as part of a peace plan brokered by the US and Rwanda. Eritrea has refused the plan because it allows Ethiopia to take administrative control of the contested land. Eritrea argues that disputed areas should become a demilitarised no-man's-land until a final settlement is reached.

A visit by a high-level African delegation in mid-June, composed of the presidents of Burkina Faso, Rwanda and Zimbabwe and the secretary general of the OAU, failed to break the deadlock.

In early June, Ethiopia unsuccessfully tried to gain access to the Red Sea by capturing the Eritrean port of Assab. Ethiopia has been landlocked since Eritrea won its independence in 1991. Access agreements were made, but it is still a sore point for Ethiopian nationalists.

Inside Ethiopia, Eritreans are being forcibly interned in makeshift camps ready for mass expulsion. Janmeda, one such camp in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, now holds as many as 5000 Eritreans. Conditions are poor, and family members left behind must fend for themselves. On June 20, the first batch of 800 Eritrean deportees arrived in Eritrea after a harrowing three-day journey. Many more are expected soon.

Official estimates of Eritreans in Ethiopia range from 150,000 to 700,000, an indication of the fact that Eritreans and Ethiopians are so well integrated through marriage, religion and language as to defy anything but arbitrary classification and persecution. Meanwhile, Germany has cancelled talks on aid worth tens of millions of dollars until Ethiopia commits itself to finding peace with its neighbour.

Ironically, Eritrea's president, Issayas Aferworki, and Ethiopia's prime minister, Meles Zenawi, share much in common. They are both charismatic visionaries who dumped Marxism-Leninism for a more pragmatic, less ideological view of the world. They were once brothers-in-arms who fought together to oust the tyrannical Ethiopian despot Haile Mariam Mengistu who — with Soviet blessings and back-up — fought against independence for Eritrea and ruthlessly suppressed the Ethiopian population.

In that victory, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) liberated Eritrea and the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front (TPLF) liberated Ethiopia. Eritrea's independence was legitimated in 1993 when a UN-supervised referendum recorded a staggering 98.8% vote in favour of independence.

The Ethiopian government had supported Eritrea. In 1993, it even suppressed Ethiopian university students protesting against Eritrean independence. The two governments have also taken a joint hard-line stance against Sudan's National Islamic Front regime's persistent attempts at regional destabilisation.

So what went wrong and why has the conflict erupted now? One theory is that nationalism, geography and ethnicity are reasserting themselves, causing fault lines in Ethiopia's TPLF-dominated ruling coalition, the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).

Within the coalition, Meles' influence is waning as other leaders, such as the minister of foreign affairs, Seyoum Mesfin, assert themselves. The TPLF represents a minority ethnic group and many of opposition parties have been banned. One sure way to rally public support and strengthen their position within the front is for Meles' rivals to take a nationalist, hard-line stance on Eritrea, forcing Meles to take a similar stance or face ridicule as a weak leader.

The province of Tigray (bordering Eritrea) also benefits by gaining disputed land, thus assuring leaders like Seyoum greater support within the TPLF and its heartland.

Once public, news of the border dispute polarised debate along nationalist lines. Tigrayan radio, in particular, incited debate, reasoning: “Ethiopia has 50 million and no port. Eritrea has 3 million and two ports. Why should the Ethiopians not have one?”

Nationalists also say that Eritreans are taking their jobs when they should be treated as foreigners. Such feelings impact on government decisions and no doubt form the rationale for expelling Eritreans, particularly those with high positions, businesses and property. It is feared that the support garnered from redistribution of confiscated property and positions once held by Eritreans will be an even greater impetus for persecution.

Divergent economic policies have also strained relations. Last November, Eritrea launched its own currency, the nakfa. Named after a town destroyed during the independence war, it is a symbol of Eritrean resistance, but also a reminder of humiliation in battle for proud Ethiopians.

Because Ethiopia insisted upon Ethiopian-Eritrean trade being conducted in hard currencies, Ethiopia had to pay port charges in hard currency. This was meant to be offset by Eritrean purchases of food products from Ethiopia, but Eritrea began purchasing elsewhere when Ethiopian traders demanded higher prices. Even though Eritrea reduced its port charges by 20% (increasing the volume of trade through Assab by 50%), Ethiopia faced foreign currency shortfalls as it tried to balance an overall trade deficit that required settlement in hard currencies.

While the former allies fight, the only victor will be Sudan's Islamic regime. Having failed to destabilise them, Sudan's fundamentalist rulers are watching its adversaries damage each other. On June 19, Sudan claimed Eritrea had attacked seven of its border points, a pretext it may use to launch attacks against Eritrea or to position Arab nations against it.

[James Thomson spent four years working in Eritrea and Ethiopia as a journalist and teacher. He is writing a thesis on Asian industrialisation and Africa for the Department of Politics and History at the University of Wollongong.]