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November 20, 2007
Is Another War Between Eritrea
and Ethiopia Inevitable?
By Tesfaye Habisso
For a number of apparent and understandable reasons, different websites, news agents, security analysts, the current U.N. Secretary-General, the White House spokesperson and other media outlets have been, since recent weeks, sending out their concerns and alarm signals about the inevitability of another war between Eritrea and Ethiopia around the end of November, 2007, and urging both sides to show utmost restraint and remove their armies from strategic areas along the border until the demarcation of the boundary by the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) is completed. Their concerns and analyses are based on a number of successive events that have unfolded over the past few years and months.
First, though Ethiopia has fully and unconditionally accepted and agreed to the 2002 boundary delimitation ruling by the EEBC, however belatedly, and explicitly announced its preparedness to finalize the demarcation process through dialogue, give and take, and compromise to insure lasting peace and friendly relations between the two sisterly nations, Eritrea has adamantly refused to agree to this modus vivendi to resolve the boundary issue once and for all. Second, and adding insult to injury, Eritrea has chosen the path of open hostility towards Ethiopia and Ethiopians by sponsoring and arming various insurgents, religious fanatics or fundamentalists and separatists hell-bent on destabilizing the country—ONLF, OLF, AFD, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and many others. Third, the
demilitarized temporary security zone (TSZ) clearly delineated some 25 kms inside Eritrean territory as part and parcel of the June 2000 Algiers Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities has been effectively violated by the intransigent Eritrean regime as the latter’s army has re-occupied most of the TSZ a year or so ago, and severely curtailed the free movement of the U.N. Forces, known as UNMEE, stationed along the border to monitor the full implementation of the cease-fire agreement until the completion and winding up of the boundary demarcation process by the EEBC. Fourth, Eritrea has moved many thousands of soldiers and heavy military equipment to the border area since the last few months, in complete disregard of the Algiers Agreement. Fifth, the U.N. Mission (UNMEE) has been unable to convene a meeting of the Military Coordination Commission since July 2006. Sixth, and allegedly, there have been military build-ups and exercises conducted by both countries along the border areas. Seventh, the political war of words and tit-for-tat propaganda by both sides have intensified since the last two years. Eight, there have also been shooting incidents now and then along the border that underscore the risk of further miscalculation. Briefly, these are, I believe, some of the major reasons that have influenced many observers to come up with scary news about the inevitability of a second full-scale war between Eritrea and Ethiopia. God Forbid!.
It is indeed sad and scary to hear about another round of war likely to break out soon between Eritrea and Ethiopia. What a tragedy in the making! Why war? Why this madness? Haven’t we yet learned bitter and painful lessons from the 1998-2000 bloody and senseless war that wreaked incalculable loss of human lives and material damages? Why does Eritrea doggedly still pursue a war-mongering policy and seek to re-escalate another round of conflict, and fret to resolve its conflicts of interests with the Ethiopian government and people through violent means? Can it ever gain more than is achievable through war rather than peaceful negotiations and dialogue? Or, are its conflicts of interests with the EPRDF party and regime irreconcilable and thus resolvable only through the elimination or destruction of one of the conflicting sides? Again, it is sad, painful and embarrassing for voices of reason on both sides of the Mereb river and globally that the former comrades-in-arms and the closest friends during the decades-long liberation struggle—EPLF and TPLF—have now turned to becoming the worst enemies to one another and ever ready on destroying each other, and in the wake, hurling their respective nations into utter doom and destruction, instead of resolving their differences via peaceful and comradely negotiations, dialogue and compromise, and putting the interests and welfare of both societies first and foremost. What a sorry state of affairs, indeed!
Warfare is undoubtedly the very antithesis of what Eritrean and Ethiopian societies need most. War is a violation of human and social nature. War should be negated, banished by law (national and international), and banished from culture. An attitude to war which considers it as unnatural, uncivilized
behavior and thus unacceptable social activity, should be cultivated if peace and stability is to reign supreme in any modern and civilized nation worthy of the name. The phenomenon of war in all its manifestations should be surrounded by alienation and cultural, legal and social negation. Wars and
rumors of war are the most serious symptoms of the developing global crisis. Von Clausewitz pointed out that, “war is a continuation of politics through additional means.” I think the time has come to correct von Clausewitz: war is an unacceptable continuation of politics by illegal and barbaric means.
However, it must be well understood that conflicts of interests are inevitable in any social setting, but what is avoidable is the violent armed form of conflict resolution. To preach or talk against war could be considered refreshingly naïve and simplistic as events throughout the world show otherwise. It is widely claimed, for instance, that democratic societies in most cases enter into wars less easily than authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, concentrate less societal resources on war, and remain more open to reaching political compromise. Thus the general
democratization of the world’s political landscape is important for the elimination of the political sources or causes of war. But not everybody shares this belief. Arnold Toynbee in “A Study of History” claims that both Industrialism and Democracy “increased the horrors of war” {A. Toynbee, A Study of History, London-Oxford, 1971, p. 283]. Democracy, he writes, not only was unable to prevent wars, but also strengthened the institution of war, converting war from the “low-intensity sport of eighteenth century kings” into horrifying “Total
War" Ibid, vol. IV, p. 157]. Democracy sometimes turns into an “instrument of national fanaticism”, warns Toynbee, pointing at the example of the French Revolution of 1789.
Furthermore, a number of great philosophers, political scientists, and historians have written vast treatises on the subject of war. While there is no general agreement, few believe that wars simply arise out of real material “grievances”—the inequity and oppression that leave thousands of innocents poor, sick, and hungry. Make everyone literate and well fed, and war might become less common but it would not go away. Hannibal as a child swore eternal enmity toward Rome, akin to
Isaias Afeworki's attitude toward Ethiopia and Ethiopians since the 1970s, not because of an impoverished Carthage but to restore the pride and dignity of his people and country after the humiliation of the First Punic War [ S. Davis, History of the World]. North Korea and North Vietnam invaded the southern halves of their peninsulas neither because their respective peoples were under attack by non-Communists, nor because their own resources and land were being stolen. Rather, they knew that only with absolute conquest of a nearby antithetical and more attractive alternative to their own rule could their hold on power be preserved. This is exactly what
Isaias Afewerki as a long time Maoist and blood-thirsty dictator wants to achieve. Moreover, Kim Il Sung and Ho Chi Minh had no illusions that Marxism or totalitarianism would make the Koreans or Vietnamese freer, wealthier, or happier. In fact, they had good reason to think just the opposite. But both did trust that they could invade and win, or at least achieve stalemate and so both attacked, were proved right, and thus held onto or expanded their power. Again, this is also what
Isaias Afewerki persistently frets to realize, in addition to restoring the pride of his people and country after the humiliation of the 1998-2000 Ethio-Eritrean war; to this end, he has already built the largest army in Sub-Saharan Africa and continues to recruit and train more and more thus turning the whole country to a full-fledged police state.
Saddam Hussein wanted land from Iran, oil from Kuwait, and obeisance from the Kurds, and sought allies by attacking Israel. Yet his own people had plenty of territory and resources well before he went to war. He was not stopped by U.N. envoys or troops, neither by the Arab League, but only by the guns and power of the United States. Sadly, the careers of the real war-makers—Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Cortes, Hitler, Mussolini or Tojo—confirm that the Greeks had it right after all: “States often fight for irrational reasons like
honor, fear, and self-interest”, and ambitious men regard restraint as weakness, not mercy. Doesn’t this stance indeed characterize Eritrea and its undisputed and war-mongering dictator
Isaias Afewerki? Could anyone who has closely observed the irrational
behavior and activities of the Eritrean ruling, sole party and regime, and its lifetime president
Isaias Afewerki since 1991 dispute this characterization?
The vexing question that should be tackled now is this: Is another war between Eritrea and Ethiopia inevitable? It is easier to pose than to satisfactorily answer this question. For all we know,
Isaias is well reputed, rather notorious, for his penchant for warfare and belligerence. Throughout the EPLF’s long and arduous struggle for Eritrean liberation from Ethiopian rule, he had always been well known for his arrogance and ambition, shrewdness and vindictiveness, irascibility and filthy temper, war-mongering and unpredictable
behavior, and unhesitant to liquidate even his closest friends and comrades-in-arms on flimsy evidence and groundless
rumors of betrayals. The so-called ‘night birds’ [Menka’a] or communists led then by Yohannes Sibhatu in the 1970s and many others thereafter, and the ‘Gang of 15’ led by Mohammed Sheriffo in the wake of the 1998-2000 Ethio-Eritrean war are only some of the closest comrades of
Isaias Afewerki who fell prey to his wrath and irrational behavior, and sent to horrible and horrifying dungeons in the hottest deserts of Eritrea, only God knows whether they are still alive or not. His hatred and contempt for Ethiopia and Ethiopians in general has always been deep-seated and demonic, akin to what Christians tell us about ‘demons torturing the sinners in Hell.’ It is these characteristics of
Isaias that make many of us who know him starting from the old UCAA [University College of Addis Abeba] days in the 1970s tick and uneasy, knowing fully well that he is hell bent on wreaking vengeance on Ethiopia and the Ethiopians for their past ‘colonial rule’ and now for the debacle that utterly humiliated his rag-tag army and above all
Isaias himself in the 1998-2000 Ethio-Eritrean war, and bruised his megalomaniac ego and his ambition to lord over Ethiopian government and resources as well as to make or break economic policies and decisions in Ethiopia. As far as I am concerned, war is always likely to be instigated or ignited between Ethiopia and Eritrea as long as
Isaias Afewerki is in power. The only constraints that may hamper or impede
Isaias and his henchmen from starting war at any time may be lack of abundant resources, human and material, under his command and the absence of the state-of-art military equipment and other capabilities in the arsenal of his military forces. Be this as it may,
Isaias will never forget and forgive the humiliation that he tasted in the 1998-2000 war and would always want to avenge his military debacle in the war.
Ever since that war, Isaias Afewerki has become, literally and figuratively, mad. The ancient Greeks had a saying: “Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.” This certainly seems to have happened with
Isaias Afewerki since his catapult to power in Eritrea in 1993. He was not contented with his achievements in assuming the pinnacle of power in Eritrea after the 30-year bitter struggle; he hurried to grab some territory or economic advantages from his immediate
neighbors, attacking turn by turn first Yemen, second the Sudan, third Djibouti and fourth its own sponsor, Ethiopia. The war with Ethiopia lasted for almost two years (1998-2000) and snuffed out the lives of more than 70,000-80,000 combatants and innocent civilians on both sides, resulting in the dislocation, disappearance, maiming, and suffering of many thousands of rural households particularly in the border areas both in Eritrea and Ethiopia and in the loss and destruction of massive property, and long-lasting socio-economic hardships and psychological scars---many thousands still suffering from what psychologists and psycho-therapists call post-traumatic stress disorder [PTSD].
The 1998-2000 Ethio-Eritrean war was a grave miscalculation on the part of Isaias
Afewerki and his henchmen as well as their external godfathers. Isaias
clearly did not expect to lose! We have seen similar phenomena many times in history. Lord Acton, in his famous adage, said that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Autocratic rulers surround themselves with a camarilla of servile courtiers who tell them what they want to hear. Consequently, they get out of reality. In extreme cases, this leads to actual insanity (Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini). In the present case, it is obvious that
Isaias Afewerki badly misjudged the mood of Ethiopian society in 1998, and, I’m afraid, he is again misjudging this society by fretting to start another war around the end of the year 2007. He failed, and is going to fail again now, that throughout the long and chequered history of Ethiopia, so long as Ethiopia was attacked by a foreign power, the peoples of Ethiopia, whatever their grudges or grievances with the incumbent
regime's), always remained united against the foreign enemies. This is what a British statesman once dubbed “the magnetism that binds all Ethiopians and that many foreign powers fail to comprehend.” This reality and historical tradition should/must never be overlooked by
Isaias and his courtiers. Ethiopians are as united as ever before to face any foreign enemy, whether it is
Isaias Afewerki and his rag-tag army with no cause to fight for with Ethiopia, or any other alien power that may fret to destabilize Ethiopia or inflict harm to our country and the nation.
So, all in all, and at the risk of being extremely naïve myself, I’d go so far as to say that another war between Eritrea and Ethiopia is not likely to occur now or in the future for obvious reasons.
Isaias and his cliques would always opt to destabilize and weaken Ethiopia by arming and sponsoring rebel groups, insurgents and separatists, and do not dare to attack Ethiopia by engaging it in a full-scale war. They would prefer to perpetuate a stalemate, “a no war, no peace situation” as long as the resources under their command would allow them to maintain their grip on power and sponsor low intensity conflicts with their
neighbor, Ethiopia. But, if, by any stretch of the imagination, Isaias
Afewerki miscalculates Ethiopia’s superiority in fire-power and human as well as material resources under its control, and provokes another full-scale war, then, Ethiopia has to defend itself and protect the safety and security of its citizens. It will no longer keep up the decade-long stalemate prevailing between Ethiopia and Eritrea but move on to checkmate and then progress to the next game. And the next game should be a war to end all wars, that is, Ethiopia should go to war so that we do not have to go to war again with Eritrea. No wishy-washy stances, no half measures! Our failure to do that in the 1998-2000 war still pains many Ethiopians throughout the country. Such a mistake should not be repeated again. Enough is enough!
Yes, Ethiopia does not want to go to war with Eritrea as it believes that peace is a superior state to war. But avoiding or preventing war requires the political will of both countries, and not a one-sided gesture. It takes, as the saying goes, “two to tango”. The Ethiopian government has again and again clearly and unequivocally declared to Eritrea and the whole world that it does not want to go to war with Eritrea, or any other nation on earth, and that it does not want to waste any dime that it collects from the national economy or external sources on wars and conflicts but expend on the most imperative objectives and goals of economic development and political
democratization, on the eradication of poverty, and on building a functioning democracy and a middle income country in Africa within the coming few decades. If these objectives and goals are to be side-tracked by Eritrea’s second and full-scale aggression, then, Ethiopia is unambiguously justified in finishing the unfinished business of toppling the
Isaias regime that every Ethiopian expected from their government in the 1998-2000 Ethio-Eritrean war and replace it with a peace-loving, rational and legitimate government with the full cooperation and collaboration of the Eritreans who have suffered for so long under the yoke of a dictatorial regime led by
Isaias Afewerki and his tight security apparatus. There is no other course to follow for the greater good of both societies.
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