WHY DEMARCATION WOULD NOT PRODUCE PEACE

 Teshome Abebe  March 7, 2007

 

In its several attempts to maintain peace and stability in the Horn, the international community has been duly engaged in trying to bring Ethiopia and Eritrea to some agreement on the demarcation of the border between the two countries.  It is to be remembered that the Border Commission, set up in accordance with the Algiers Agreement reached between the two countries, had rendered its decision on the issue. While the precise ruling was a bit confusing initially, it is now clear what the intentions of the commission were when it rendered its decision in April of 2003. Both parties initially claimed that the decision was in their favor, and Ethiopia in particular, was a bit embarrassed having had its Foreign Minister claim, at a hastily arranged news conference, that the flash point of the war between the two countries, Badme, had been awarded to his country only to back-track later after the written decision was  made public.

 There have been many international attempts to move the demarcation process forward including efforts by the United Nations, the United States and the African Union. After initially refusing to accept the ruling as final and binding, Ethiopia has in progression come to (a) accept the decision in principle, and then (b) accept the decision but put on the table a five-point plan which would require the parties to enter into dialog so that the particularities of demarcation on the ground could be negotiated between the two parties and enable a just and sound decision that would eventually lead to permanent peace. On the face of it, the five-point plan appeared to be reasonable as the parties  would eventually have to talk one way or another so that, for example, a particular post could be erected here, and landmarks be identified there, etc. In other words, the thrust of the five-point plan was to enable the parties do what they would have done otherwise anyway. But the Eritreans refused to have any of it arguing that the Border Commission has rendered its decision and that the five-point plan was only a ploy to undo what the Commission had already done. Furthermore, Eritrea viewed the five-point plan as a subterfuge by the world powers who it says favor Ethiopia in the first place, and that it was being used as a safety-valve for Meles Zenawi in relation to his own domestic needs in Ethiopia. And by all means, Eritrea was not about to reward Meles on this one!

 Setting aside the details of the Commission’s decision and the various efforts that had been mounted since then to get the parties to come to some sort of accommodation, I will argue very briefly in the following paragraphs that it would appear to be against the interests of both regimes to have a final demarcation at this particular point in time.

 But first, it can be argued that if both the current regimes in Ethiopia and Eritrea wanted permanent peace, it would be very simple to move forward with the demarcation process with efficiency and ease. Ethiopia’s argument that the demarcation process would divide families, divide communities, put villages on one side and their farming fields on the other side of the border, etc. can easily be overcome in the interest of peace. Families could be moved to the side of the border of their choice. Because one can not maintain farming fields in another country’s territory that too can be taken care of by swapping farming fields where appropriate (this requires dialog!).  After all, the Ethiopian government has moved and settled families to better farming areas in other parts of the country. Therefore, the argument about the moving of families or dividing them up and separating them from their farming fields is at best a tenuous argument.

On the Eritrean side, if peace and harmony with the big brother to the south were indeed the real agenda, all sorts of accommodating possibilities exist. For example, by simply eliminating the tension between the two countries, Eritrea could go back to nation-building, and there would be no need whatsoever to maintain the largest standing army in sub-Saharan Africa.  The youth could be put to more productive work, better yet; they could help build an economy which needs their participation.

There are two major reasons why both Ethiopia and Eritrea may not wish to demarcate the border, and even if the border were demarcated, that alone would not bring about lasting peace. Let us first turn to Ethiopia.

It is well known that Eritrea initiated the invasion of Ethiopian territory in 1998 and that the Ethiopian government was unprepared to repulse the invasion initially. The few militiamen at the border were no match for the regular Eritrean army. The Eritreans swiftly ran over and occupied Badme—the focal point of the war. Having lost territory that it claimed as its own for generations, Ethiopia had to mount a counter attack which failed to dislodge the Eritreans initially. But by 2000, the Ethiopian Defense Forces were just too much for the Eritreans. Ethiopia not only reclaimed Badme and its environs but went very deep into Eritrean territory. Only the intervention of the international community and the magnanimity of Ethiopia’s leaders saved the day for Eritrea. The cost of the victory, both in men and treasury, however, was astounding. Given that the Ethiopian response was to reclaim Badme, and given that the high cost of achieving that goal is seared in the memories of Ethiopians, it would be politically unthinkable for the government of Ethiopia to justify to the public why it would accept the handing over of Badme to Eritrea as the Border Commission had ruled.

Secondly, and I have written about this in an article titled “EPRDF is Capable But It Too, Has A Blind Spot”, one of the errors of the EPRDF ruling party in its formative years was the granting of independence to Eritrea without adequate safeguards for Ethiopian national security needs including access to the sea. As a result, Ethiopia, a country of almost 80 million people is landlocked. To make matters worse, Eritrea has become the destination and refuge for all sorts of trouble-making elements whose aim is the overthrow of the EPRDF government in Ethiopia. While the Ethiopian government has attempted to mitigate the difficulties caused to it because of the loss of the port of Asab, I surmise that it would prefer Asab to any other port in any of the neighboring countries. As a result, any border settlement and final demarcation that does not in some shape or form address the issue of access would be untenable not only to the EPRDF itself, but to the Ethiopian public at large. I believe that the EPRDF paid a heavy price in the last election, in part because the average Ethiopian felt betrayed by how the party handled the Eritrean independence, particularly, the issue of Asab and access to the sea.

While the attempt on the part of the Ethiopian government to avoid demarcation in its current form may be political—the continuing hold of the party to power—the Eritrean government’s need to avoid demarcation is driven by purely ideological factors. This ideology takes the following forms: the ideology of hate for anything Ethiopian; the ideology of war and destruction; and the ideology of suppression and control of the Eritrean population.

The strong man in Asmara is believed to hate anything Ethiopian. He has forbidden his subjects from including teff in their diet—teff is an Ethiopian cereal and pasta is preferred; his relationship with his former friend and colleague the Prime Minister of Ethiopia has soured so much so that he would rather see him out of power; his despise for the Weyane and the Amhara is legendary; and his burning of the Ethiopian flag at national holidays is quite common. This hate for anything Ethiopian is an incurable and unalterable ideology for him.

Furthermore, the strong man’s ideology of war and destruction is well documented. He initiated war with Yemen across the Red Sea, Djibouti to the south, Sudan to the west, and finally with Ethiopia. When this would not satisfy their appetite, the rulers in Asmara assembled, trained, assisted and joined in a war against Ethiopia for the second time, only this time through Somalia. What transpired in Somalia is now in the history books and I would not dwell on it here. Suffice it to state that the rulers in Asmara will use their ideology of war time and again to try and break up Ethiopia and weaken its institutions and governance systems.

The third ideology manifests itself through the misery that the Eritrean people have to bear for themselves. The country does not have an approved constitution—it is a one-man ruled country. The rulers in Asmara have been perfecting their ideology of suppression and control to deny their own citizens the liberty they yearned for. It is a common place statement to hear some Eritreans say that they yearn for the days of Haile Selassie and even for the Derg days of dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam.

The rulers of Eritrea would find it extremely hard to surrender or alter these ideologies. It is the means of staying in power and any surrender or revision of one of these ideologies would automatically make the other two unmanageable. It would be foolish to assume that the rulers in Asmara would willingly relinquish their control over the population and at the same time give up their dream of weakening or breaking up Ethiopia any time soon.

In summary, as pointed out earlier, the demarcation process would not bring peace between the two countries for the following reasons. In the first place, any demarcation that the Ethiopian government would agree to would have to be highly coercive, and if it goes ahead and accepts the current set of conditions with regard to demarcation, it would be tantamount to a political suicide—at least in the long run. The Ethiopian people have suspended their provident sense of independence in trust of the government regarding this issue, and it would be detrimental to the governing party to fineness the outcome of any demarcation—though unlikely. The Eritreans know this full well, and their public push for demarcation is only a ploy. It is another attempt at nailing Meles, and not as a result of their inherent interest for a lasting peace as they claim. The Eritreans believe that they have check-mated Meles in this high stakes game, and they want to make sure that he is irreparably estranged from his own political base. After all, Meles is nominally accountable to his party and to the Ethiopian people while the rulers in Asmara are accountable to no one. And of all the political actors on the scene today, the Eritreans fear Melse the most. And in an ironic way, he is the one leader that has the best chance of dueling with Isayas and coming out a victor!

The Eritrean government, driven by the ideologies I have enumerated, and despite its public push for demarcation, would prefer to maintain the status quo because demarcation would imply that the government would now have to abandon, or at least modify, all three ideologies. There would be no legitimate reason to hate, no legitimate reason to continue to wage war and destruction, and no legitimate reason to suppress and control its own population as there would be nothing to fear from a peaceful and development-oriented Ethiopia. The rulers in Asmara might even be afraid that the Eritrean people themselves would rise up and demand that they be governed by an approved constitution!! 

In my opinion, demarcation has turned into an important and defining match of wits, nerves and subtleties. And in an ironic sense of justice, the more the Eritrean strong man insists on destroying Ethiopia or even ration peace and stability to it, the more  he makes Meles look like the better statesman of the two both  in the eyes of the international community and the Ethiopian populace!

 The author, a former university administrator, resides in the United States, and may be reached at: fekade12003@yahoo.com