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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 May 2000 Issue No. 482 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 18 - 24 May 2000 Issue No. 482
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Features Heritage Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Charging on empty
By Gamal Nkrumah
Egged on by hardliners claiming they do not want to see their sprawling country ripped apart by ethnic rivalries and regional secessionist threats, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi may be gunning for glory by gambling on a quick and decisive military victory over Eritrea. The war is not quite the Armageddon of yesteryear, but famine is fast approaching Biblical plague proportions.
Even as famine stalks the land, fighting again flared this week on the Ethiopian-Eritrean border after a long but uncertain lull. The violence erupted on the eve of Ethiopian multi-party parliamentary elections and many observers believe the fighting is politically motivated. Most observers believe Ethiopian intransigence caused peace talks to founder in Algiers last week.
The ruling Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) won a staggering 483 seats of the 550 available parliamentary seats in Ethiopia's first-ever elections, held in 1995. International monitors pronounced the result satisfactory, but this time around, the EPRDF government has ruled out the participation of foreign monitors, saying they are unnecessary in a sovereign state. Needless to say opposition parties are incensed.
The EPRDF, whose power base lies in the northernmost region of Tigray where the battles between Ethiopia and Eritrea are currently fought, has governed the country since marching on the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa in 1991 and ousting Mengistu Haile Mariam, a self-styled Marxist-Leninist military man who ruled the country with an iron fist for over 15 years.
Ironically, it was the Eritreans -- the EPRDF allies at the time -- who helped secure the victory. There is a natural affinity between Eritrea and Ethiopia reinforced by ethnic, linguistic and religious ties. The two ruling regimes share a common history of fighting together against Mengistu's dreaded Dergue, or junta.
"Peace is held hostage by the ruling clique in Ethiopia. The people in power were once our allies," Yemane Ghebreab, political adviser to Eritrean President Isaias Aferworki told Al-Ahram Weekly on a visit to Cairo last week, explaining that Ethiopia's ethnic-based political structure is radically different from Ertirea's non-ethnic policies.
"The conflict goes back several years now, although it only became public in May 1998, when Ethiopia openly declared war on Eritrea. Since then Ethiopia has consistently refused to renounce the use of force to solve the dispute and continues to occupy large tracts of Eritrean territory," Ghebreab said.
The fiercest fighting came in February 1999, when Ethiopians recaptured Badme. The Eritreans conceded having suffered "setbacks," but have no intention of laying down their arms. "Ethiopia wants to resolve the conflict militarily. Ethiopia is not interested in peace. What it seeks is a diplomatic cover to go to war," Ghebreab said.
A peace plan presented to both countries by the Organisation of African Unity is made up of three documents -- the framework agreement, the modalities of implementation and the technical arrangements. The first two are substantive documents, the third deals with the details and sequencing of implementation. Eritrea has accepted all three documents, but Ethiopia rejected the whole plan under the pretext of modifying the technical arrangements. Although Ethiopia says it accepts the first two documents, it has categorically refused to sign them.
Eritrea called for a signature of the two documents that Ethiopia claims to accept, a measure called for in the framework agreement, Ghebreab explained. "Despite this clear provision of the peace plan, Ethiopia refused to sign," he said.
Eritrea has also called for a cease-fire agreement. "This is a requirement of article one of the framework agreement, which commits the two parties to 'an immediate cessation of hostilities.' Ethiopia also violated this provision of the peace plan and categorically rejected a cease-fire," Ghebreab said.
Ethiopia ranks third from bottom on the development index of the United Nations Development Programme. Only war-torn Sierra Leone and Somalia fare worse. From the perspective of literacy, health-care provision and social services, to economic growth and gross domestic product per capita, Ethiopia's record is abysmal. In Ethiopia, an estimated 16 million or 22 per cent of population, need food aid. Likewise, an estimated 850,000 people in Eritrea need food aid -- 30 per cent of the country's population.
"It is unacceptable that two of the poorest countries on earth ... should bring their troops to the border to prepare for war," said US Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke. "The differences between the two sides are real but small, and they can be resolved by diplomatic means," claimed Holbrooke, who last week headed a seven-member UN team that conducted a flurry of diplomatic activities in a bid to secure peace in the region. "The alternative is a senseless war which will kill tens of thousands of people and resources will be diverted for the war effort," he said.
Still, he knew ahead of time that his mission was doomed. "The chances of us succeeding are very small," Holbrooke concluded. Ethiopia will not agree to a cease-fire until everything else is agreed upon and Eritrea wants a cease-fire before working out the details of a comprehensive peace plan.
Eritrea, with merely 3.5 million people, projects itself as the Biblical David in battle with an Ethiopian Goliath. At least religion is not an aggravating factor, but rival military systems certainly is. Ethiopia, with a much larger population of 58 million, has a voluntary, incentive-driven youth training programme. But most observers claim that Ethiopia's army lacks the professionalism and high morale of Eritrean troops. Eritrea has a mandatory, centrally-controlled military training programme for all young men and women effectively creating a militarised force, which explains the tiny nation's success on the battlefield. And yet, the protagonists in this conflict have everything to lose and nothing to gain -- no spoils to be plundered and few political gains.
So who are the hard-liners who appear to be egging Zenawi on to wage a senseless war? The main opposition parties are ethnically-based, such as the All-Amhara People's Organisation (AAPO) and the Oromo National Congress, the two largest such organisations. Others, like the Ethiopian Democratic Unity Party and the National Democratic Union are less obviously ethnic, even though all parties have a tendency to be regionally based. The ethnic Somali and Afar regions of eastern Ethiopia are not participating in the elections, ostensibly because of the drought. In the south, violence erupted as opposition parties claimed preliminary election results announced by the pro-government National Electoral Commission to be fraudulent.
Theoretically, some 20 million registered voters will choose candidates for the federal parliament, nine regional assemblies and two city councils in this week's election. No less than 50 political parties and an unprecedented number of independents are contesting the elections. Ethiopian human rights organisations and opposition parties warn that the elections are neither free nor fair. Eight journalists are currently in jail, and in the run-up to the elections, reports of intimidation and censorship were widespread, with the government using the state of war as a pretext.
"Our government has become known as one of the world's top violators of a key human right: freedom of expression," warned Makonnen Bishaw, head of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council.
The Amhara people, traditional rulers of Ethiopia and still dominant among the economic and professional elite, are up in arms about Article 39 of the constitution, which gives Ethiopia's 80 ethnic groups the right to self-determination and even to secede -- although this seems only to be true on paper. State-owned land, another legacy of the Mengistu regime, is also a bone of contention for the former large-estate holders, many of whom are wealthy Amhara, who want the land to be privatised.
The Amhara and Oromo peoples respectively make up 25 and 40 per cent of Ethiopia's population, but both groups are largely excluded from political power in favour of Zenawi's own ethnic Tigrinya, who populate the Tigray region where the territory disputed by Ethiopia and Eritrea lies. The war might just be the preferred weapon the disgruntled Amhara and Ormo factions have chosen to clip Zenawi's wings and step into the corridors of power.
For his part, Zenawi insists that he wants peace. "We need to redirect our resources to development. We need to do that on an urgent basis. This war has to end quickly," Zenawi said this week.
The Eritreans, who say they are acting in self-defence, also seem ready to lay down their arms, now that they control most of the disputed territory. What is unclear is whether the Ethiopians, who are suspected by international observers of leaning toward a quick military solution to the crisis, are willing to negotiate. In short, Ethiopian threats being bandied about at the moment do not inspire much hope for a smooth resolution to this senseless conflict.
