PART I

Sally Healy (OBE) is an Associate Fellow of the Africa Programme at Chatham House. She was formerly a specialist in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with over twenty years’ experience providing research and analysis of African politics and development, with a particular focus on the countries of the Horn and East Africa.

She is Convenor of the Horn of Africa Group, a collaborative study of conflict in the Horn of Africa undertaken at ChathamHouse over the past two years, and is the author, with Martin Plaut, of the Chatham House Briefing Paper Ethiopia and Eritrea: Allergic to Persuasion (2007). Her report, "Lost Opportunities in the Horn of Africa: How Conflicts Connect and Peace Agreements Unravel" is a study of three peace processes in the Horn of Africa, a region of Africa distinguished by the prevalence and persistence of armed conflict. It deals with the Algiers Agreement of December 2000 between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Somalia National Peace and Reconciliation Process concluded in October 2004 and the Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement of January 2005. In this issue we presented the part, which deals with the Ethio-Eritrea conflict and the process of peace agreement.

The Algiers Agreement

The Algiers Agreement was signed by Ethiopia and Eritrea on 12 December 2000. Warfare between the two countries had already ended with the signing of a Cessation of

Hostilities Agreement in June 2000 This had established a 25km demilitarized Transitional Security Zone (TSZ) situated on the Eritrean side of the de facto border. The UN was invited to provide a peacekeeping force to monitor the zone. The Algiers Agreement formally ended the war. It provided for an adjudication of the disputed border, settlement of compensation claims between the two sides and the deployment of UN peacekeepers. A neutral Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) was established under the agreement with a mandate ‘to delimit and demarcate the colonial treaty border based on pertinent colonial treaties (1900, 1902 and 1908) and applicable international law’. The two sides agreed in advance that the decision of the Commission would be final and binding, and would be followed by ‘expeditious’ demarcation.

The impact of the Ethiopia–Eritrea conflict was not confined to the two countries. It profoundly altered the alliance structure of the entire region. Whatever their local differences before the war – and these were played out very quietly – Ethiopia and Eritrea had appeared to be in lockstep on regional foreign policy issues. In particular, they had formed a hostile alliance against Sudan and were providing vigorous support, including military assistance, to the Sudanese opposition movements grouped in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). The anti-Khartoum alliance included Uganda and had the backing of the United States. It ended as soon as Ethiopia and Eritrea went to war. During the hostilities the countries of the region tried to affect a neutral stance, though generally not to the satisfaction of Eritrea. Along with the Sudanese government, which saw the hostile alliance crumble, Djibouti was a major beneficiary of the conflict. The loss of access to Eritrea’s ports at Assab and Massawa brought all Ethiopia’s import and export trade to the port of Djibouti. Income from Ethiopian trade now accounts for 70 per cent of Djibouti’s revenue. There were also consequences for Somalia, where Ethiopia and Eritrea started to support opposing sides among the Mogadishu warlords.

Background to the conflict

The war that broke out between Ethiopia and Eritrea in May 1998 came as a complete surprise to most observers, including the protagonists themselves (though they tend to deny this). The two countries had only recently achieved a ‘civil divorce’ that had established Eritrea as an independent state in 1993. To the outside world and to their respective domestic audiences, the two regimes appeared to be on excellent terms. The underlying causes of the conflict were local, but nonetheless complex. They had to do with shifting power relations between former allies, growing economic rivalry and competing local nationalism.

The 1991 overthrow of the Mengistu regime in Ethiopia had been achieved as a joint venture between two rebel forces, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) and the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). (The core component of the EPRDF was the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), operating in the province of Tigray that adjoins Eritrea.) Acceptance of Eritrea’s independence was a central plank of the alliance and was formalized by a UN-supervised referendum in Eritrea in 1993. A significant section of Ethiopian opinion was opposed to the secession of Eritrea but the EPRDF’s transitional government, headed by Meles Zenawi, argued that it was a necessary measure to bring an end to the conflict that had bedeviled the country for the previous 30 years. Arrangements were made for Ethiopia’s continuing use of the Eritrean ports Massawa and Assab. This was a profitable arrangement for Eritrea, which also used Ethiopia’s currency. Details of these arrangements were not open to public scrutiny, not least because of the sensitivities over Eritrea’s independence.

Despite these sensitivities, none of the other countries in the region opposed Eritrea’s secession. Sudan had supported Eritrean independence fairly consistently since the 1960s. Somalia was in tatters and in no state to adopt foreign policy positions. But if it had been, Somali sympathies would undoubtedly have been with Eritrea. When Somalia did have a government it had supported the Eritrean rebellion as a way of weakening Ethiopia, the overbearing neighbor with which it had so long been at odds. Departing from its customary conservatism on matters of boundary changes, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) raised no objections to Eritrea’s independence since the Ethiopian government had accepted the principle of separation. Ethiopia itself asked the UN to supervise the referendum that produced an overwhelming vote for independence.

On the surface, relations between Issayas Afeworki and Meles Zenawi appeared to be close and harmonious. They had been comrades in arms for more than a decade and had successfully defeated a common enemy. However, this image proved to be something of a public myth. In reality there had been some serious difficulties between the Eritrean and Tigrayan fronts during the struggle, including a complete breakdown in relations at a critical time of famine when the EPLF had denied the TPLF access on its supply routes from Sudan. Despite these past troubles, little was done to develop the institutions required to manage complex and increasingly divergent inter-state interests. Instead, as Richard Reid has put it, the two sides ‘institutionalized a set of disagreements and contradictions that had plagued relations between the movements since the liberation war’.

Serious economic rivalry developed, particularly between party elites in Eritrea and Tigray. Eritrea’s adoption of a separate currency in late 1997 had major financial consequences that soon began to destabilize the interdependent relationship between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The un-demarcation border between the two countries, which had previously had no effect on economic life, suddenly became a real trade barrier across which transaction costs would be incurred. At the same time Ethiopia had to pay in dollars for use of the port of Assab and started to divert some of its trade to Djibouti instead.

Ethiopia took the opportunity to issue new banknotes and was unwilling to maintain parity of exchange rates. The relative strength of the Ethiopian currency against the new Eritrean currency quickly became apparent. At the micro level there were growing disputes over jurisdiction between local authorities along the un-demarcated border, and some incursions had occurred from the Ethiopian side during security operations. Suspicion was also aroused in Eritrea over a map issued by the regional state authorities in Tigray with borders that extended into territory the Eritreans regarded as their own. The accumulation of issues had already prompted the two sides to establish a boundary commission to work on demarcation, but it had yet to start its work.

It was against this background, in May 1998, that a small border incident was mishandled and erupted out of control – neither side had planned it. Eritrean forces moved into the Ethiopian-administered village of Badme on 12 May following a shooting incident between local militia and an Eritrean border patrol on 6 May. The Ethiopian prime minister summoned parliament next day and declared war. Intense diplomatic efforts were launched to prevent the war being pushed to its logical conclusion. On the table, from an early stage, was a joint US/Rwanda proposal that the two sides should withdraw to positions held before the outbreak of conflict and seek a neutral ruling on the location of the boundary that they would both accept. However, it proved impossible for the sides to agree on the terms of withdrawal.

Initially, Ethiopia accepted the proposal and Eritrea rejected it. After the 1999 round of fighting Eritrea moved to acceptance and Ethiopia raised objections over the details. Over the next two years there were three intense military campaigns that cost the lives of over 80,000 combatants. Fighting ended in June 2000 after Ethiopian forces dislodged Eritrean forces from border positions they had seized in 1998 and started to advance inside the country.

The outcome at Algiers

Negotiations on both the Cessation of Hostilities and the Algiers Agreements were achieved very rapidly after the fighting ended. This was possible because the external parties to the agreement – the OAU, US, UN and EU – had been heavily involved in trying to prevent the war and a good deal of preparatory work had been done on what a peace would look like. The mediators and the backers of the process believed it secured their main objectives – a UN-supervised demilitarized zone to ensure no renewal of conflict and a mechanism to delimit and demarcate the border between the two countries. For external mediators this seemed the most tangible problem to solve. Neither of the parties objected to treating it as the central issue.

Initially the peace process went well. There was no recurrence of fighting. The Transitional Security Zone was demarcated (on the Eritrean side of the de facto border) in early 2001 and Ethiopian troops had withdrawn by March. A 3,800-strong UN peacekeeping force, the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), was quickly installed to oversee the demilitarized border area while the Boundary Commission came up with its findings.

The Boundary Commission announced its Delimitation Decision on 13 April 2002. It agreed upon an interpretation of the boundary such that it fell to the east of Badme, placing the town administered by Ethiopia, and where the conflict had erupted, just inside Eritrea. The chances that the ruling would provide the basis for a viable settlement were severely hampered by the fact that it did not reflect the distribution of power at the end of the war. But here contested versions of reality set in. From Ethiopia’s perspective, the ruling required it to give up territory previously under its administration that had been unlawfully seized and had just been won back in a very costly war. Eritrea, unwilling to admit defeat, explains it quite differently. It maintains that it undertook a strategic withdrawal in response to Ethiopia’s determined military assault in May 2000, and that then both sides had agreed to resort to a binding adjudication instead of continuing the conflict. According to this view, Ethiopia did not win the war. There may be some Eritrean bravado involved but Ethiopia’s early withdrawal (under the terms of Algiers) allows the perpetuation of the idea that the Eritreans were not entirely defeated.

Blockage on the boundary ruling

Ethiopia appealed first to the Boundary Commission, arguing that errors had been made and adjustments would be required during the demarcation phase. The Commission responded that the Delimitation Decision was final and binding, that having made its determination it could not receive further representations from the parties and that it had no authority to vary the boundary line. Ethiopia next appealed to the UN Security Council. In a letter to the UN Secretary General, Prime Minister Meles declared that the work of the Commission was in terminal crisis as a result of its decision on Badme and parts of the Central Sector. This he characterized as ‘totally illegal, unjust and irresponsible’. He appealed to the Security Council to set up an ‘alternative mechanism to demarcate the contested parts of the boundary in a just and legal manner. This was rejected.

Eritrea meanwhile stuck firmly to the terms of the Algiers Agreement and looked to the international community to put meaningful pressure on the Ethiopian government to accept the ruling and allow demarcation to take place. Despite having the law on its side, Eritrea had considerable difficulty gaining international sympathy. Its increasingly blunt demands for the international community to compel Ethiopia to comply with the Decision (and give up Badme) largely fell on deaf ears. A stalemate set in from late 2003. The UN and its most important member – the United States – refused to move away from the boundary ruling, attempting instead to sweeten the bitter pill. Ethiopia used skilful diplomacy to present its case for non-compliance in the best possible light, banking on its greater weight as a regional partner, particularly in the post 9/11 climate. Eritrea has found it hard to accept the reality of its weak international standing vis-à-vis Ethiopia. At times it has made matters worse by playing its diplomatic hand badly and alienating previously friendly powers.

 

By Sally Healy