Horn of Africa historical (pre-2011): catch all thread

[SWJED]

19 May London Times - Is U.S. Using Enemy to Fight a Proxy War?.

... in Somalia, where rising turmoil has killed 150 in the past month, the interim government has accused the US of sliding quietly back into the fray on the warlords’ side, more than a decade after they drove out US forces.

The Somali government claims that the US is backing the kind of warlords who were its old enemy, and who make the country ungovernable, to keep al-Qaeda, its worse enemy, at bay.

This week two senior spokesmen from the Bush Administration refused to answer direct questions about US backing, but acknowledged fears that al-Qaeda would profit from the chaos. “In an environment of instability, al-Qaeda may take root. We want to make sure that al-Qaeda does not establish a beachhead in Somalia,” Tony Snow, White House spokesman, said...

To credit Somalia with a “government” is stretching a point; it has only a United Nations-backed gesture of hope. For 15 years, since the overthrow of Mohammed Siad Barre, the long-time dictator, Somalia has had no central rule.

The interim government, headed by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, clings to the shadow of power, but must meet in neighbouring Kenya or in the southern town of Baidoa, as Mogadishu is too dangerous...

[SWJED]

29 May Boston Globe editorial - Fester in Africa's Horn.

The war that killed 70,000 people between 1998 and 2000 has stopped, but the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea has not ended. The UN Security Council would encourage resumption of fighting if it reduced the 3,000-man peacekeeping force on the border.

Council members, led by the United States, are irked that the dispute hasn't been resolved. An international commission decided that a sliver of land claimed by Ethiopia should be part of Eritrea, and that demarcation was to have been the cornerstone of a peace settlement, but Ethiopia has refused to cede the land. The United States and other nations need to persuade the government to accept the ruling.

At the same time, Eritrea needs to end its estrangement from its neighbor. It should normalize relations by giving Ethiopia every opportunity to use the port at Assab and by safeguarding the rights of Ethiopian expatriates...

[Jedburgh]

Good background on the situation, from ICG, published last December:

Ethiopia and Eritrea: Preventing War

The 1998-2000 war has frequently been described by pundits as being as pointless as “two bald men fighting over a comb”, but for the belligerents the issues are deadly serious. Ironically, it is the peace process itself that has produced a stalemate from which renewed fighting is now feared.

The disputed border was the proximate cause of the war. Arguably, however, the root causes went deeper, including to the legacy of friction between the two former allies from their struggle against the regime (1977-1991) of Ethiopian dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam and the overdependence on relations between leaders and parties rather than institutions in managing bilateral relations.

Many differences arose between the neighbours over migration, labour, and trade. Particularly controversial was Eritrea’s introduction of its own currency in November 1997, despite Ethiopia’s strong protest. Tension also developed over the use of the port of Assab, which Ethiopia had ceded to Eritrea at independence. Its loss cost a suddenly landlocked Ethiopia significant revenues, and resentment smouldered.

On both sides, however, the dusty border village of Badme, where the war began, has now acquired a symbolic importance entirely out of proportion to its size and population...

[SWJED]

Africa should be on our radar screen... Asia also...

[AFlynn]

In the pattern of postcolonial states, Prime Minister Zenawi and President Afeworki came to embody the image of their nations. In stamping their personalities and leadership styles on to otherwise weak national and bilateral institutions; however, they guaranteed that the resurgence of conflicts over identity and stature would have enormous consequences on the stability of the entire relationship. It is in this respect that the border conflict (posed in populist terms as a war among "brothers" and "cousins") exhibits an inability to structure rule in impersonal institutions. Soon after the border hostilities broke out in May 1998, Afeworki suggested that settlement would be elusive because of concerns "about pride, integrity, respect, trust, confidence and all those kinds of things. When you lose them, it becomes a big problem for us in this region; it is not always money or resources."

(Gilbert Khadiagala, “Reflections on the Ethiopian-Eritrean Border Conflict” Fletcher Forum of World Affairs. Vol. 23, No. 2, Fall 1999)

I wrote a paper on this war this fall, mostly on its causes as a factor of flaws in bilateral relations and the papering-over of longstanding issues with the rhetoric of revolutionary solidarity.

The Eritrea-Ethiopian war was kind of weird compared to most wars in Africa; both sides took out about a billion dollars of loans from the world bank, and then partook of the great fire sale that was the late 90s arms market. As it was fought, it was essentially a big 20th-century style conventional conflict with massive static defenses opposed by armored spearheads, etc, even a small air war providing a product demonstration of sorts for the Sukhoi-27 and Mig-29. The border dispute that started the war really hasn't been resolved to any degree (it really seems to be more a prestige thing than a concrete dispute). Both leaders have gotten worse on civil liberties and human rights since 2000. Anyway, eritrea has generally worked to try and frustrate ethiopian ambitions in somalia, etc. Also, the war cut off secure and easy port access for ethiopia, which the new somali gov't may try to provide instead.


Robert D. Kaplan has a dynamite book on the horn circa mid 1980s.

[tequila]

See Kaplan's fawning tribute to Eritrea and its dictator here. The Eritrean authorities know just what beats to hit with Kaplan - praise for former European imperialists and nice words about Israel and the U.S.

[Beelzebubalicious]

Yes, it's easy to be impressed with Afewerki. I was for awhile and so were so many Eritreans, but time has shown something different. This was written in 2003, when optimism was high and Afewerki did walk around w/out bodyguards.

Anyway, I've been thinking this little border skirmish is going to blow up again at any moment. Each time it doesn't. It feels like it's just a matter of time, though. Perhaps it's Ethiopia's other problems or it's Sudan that keeps this just below boiling.

Though Afewerki is not as well supported as he was in the past and life is getting worse in Eritrea, he doesn't seem like he's going anywhere soon. On the other hand, I'm not sure how Meles hangs on. Perhaps it's the age-old conflict distraction.

What's new out there? Anybody know anyone in the soup?

[Beelzebubalicious]

I also wanted to add this article that provides some more background on the border dispute and current issues. Terence Lyons wrote a piece for the Council on Foreign Relations titled, "Avoiding Conflict in the Horn of Africa: US Policy Towards Ethiopia and Eritrea"

http://www.cfr.org/content/publicati...itreaCSR21.pdf

[Beelzebubalicious]

the Sudan Tribune is the only news source to report this. Anyone have any information to support or deny this info?

Eritrea deploying 25000 troops into Ethiopia border - opposition
Tuesday 23 October 2007.

October 22, 2007 (MEKELLE, Ethiopia) — The opposition Eritrean People Democratic Front (EPDF) today said, Eritrea recently has deployed over 25000 troops toward Ethiopia border.

“Eritrean 19 and 13 military division forces fully armed are deployed at the temporary security zone where UN peace keepers are deployed.” The opposition group said.

According to the EPDF’s statement Eritrea has break into the buffer zone, Temporary Security Zone, (TSZ) between the Eritrea and Ethiopia forces; and heavily started massing its troop

Ethiopia and Eritrea forces are now in less than 25 kms away from each other and recent tensions could break out in to a full war any time.

The group further said the government of Eritrea has imposed curfew in Senafe town and around.

’’The curfew imposed since last week and which the group said lasts from dusk to down aimed to control its fleeing citizens to Ethiopia in the cover of darkness.” The group added.

International observers say Eritrea violated the Alger agreement by sending troops to the demilitarized zone. Also the UN urged Eritrea to remove the restrictions placed by Eritrea upon UN mission forces between the two countries.

At the end of October 2005, Eritrea ordered the U.N. mission in Eritrea to "confine its land vehicle movements to the main roads" in the 25-kilometer wide demilitarized buffer zone.

The move was seen as a pressure from Eritrea intending to force the international community into taking action against Ethiopia, which has refused to accept an international ruling on the border made in 2002.

In 2000, Ethiopia and Eritrea ended a 2 1/2-year border war that killed 70,000 people and cost two of the poorest countries in the world an estimated $1 million a day each.

http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article24373

[tequila]

Ethiopia says may call off Eritrea border pact - Reuters 25 Sep. Possibly related if the above opposition group is telling the truth?

Ethiopia said on Tuesday it may terminate the pact ending its border war with Eritrea, accusing its smaller neighbour of breaching the deal on several fronts including coordinating "terrorist activity".

Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin in a letter to his Eritrean counterpart said Addis Ababa would be forced "to consider its peaceful and legal options under international law" if Eritrea continued.

Those options include terminating the pact or suspending part or all of it, Mesfin wrote ...

[Beelzebubalicious]

It's probably nothing. Maybe they are there to pick crops, like they were in 2006 and 2003...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6057352.stm
and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3244204.stm

Of course, if anyone has been on that border, you'd have to wonder what crops they're picking....especially in the TSZ

[Beelzebubalicious]

This is an interesting article by Michela Wrong on how the deadline for the Algiers Agreement signed by Ethiopia and Eritrea in 2000 expires at the end of November and the implications for the future.

By the way, Small Wars Forum readers might appreciate Michela Wrong's book, "I Didn't Do It For You: How the World Betrayed a Small African Nation", about Eritrea, especially Chapter 10, titled "Blowjobs, Bugging and Beer" about U.S. Military base called Kagnew Station in Eritrea. For more info from one of her sources of that article, go to http://www.geozazz.com/wrongreview.htm

War brews on the new frontier
Michela Wrong

Published 25 October 2007

Michela Wrong reports on the tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea and the war brewing on the new frontier

A grim deadline expires in a few weeks' time. It will pass unnoticed by the British public, but that doesn't make it any less important, not just for the two nations involved, but for Africa as a whole. For it sets the seal on an abject failure by the west to ensure that a vital African ally respects international law. And the act of defiance our governments have chosen to ignore will undermine peacemaking on the continent for decades to come.

At the end of November, the frontier separating Eritrea from Ethiopia becomes officially demarcated, in the teeth of Ethiopian opposition. For five years, Addis Ababa has done its best to prevent cement pillars being placed along a line designated by the international Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission in April 2002, a ruling that both states originally agreed was to be final and binding. The exasperated commission chairman, Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, announced last November that if the stalemate continued, the border would automatically count as legally demarcated a year hence, pillars or no.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200710250023

Also see:

Ethiopia, Eritrea Trade Blame on Boundary Dispute

and

Algiers Agreement

[tequila]

Thanks for the links.

I'm in the middle of Wrong's book now, and it's definitely a great read and interesting stuff.

[Beelzebubalicious]

Report calls on the UN to enforce the border demarcation and the US to send a clear message to both sides that war will not be tolerated. I've seen nothing from either the UN or the US in the public. Anyone know if there's been any diplomatic dialogue on this subject from the US side?

Ethiopia and Eritrea: Stopping the Slide to War


Nairobi/New York/Brussels, 5 November 2007: The international community must act urgently to prevent Ethiopia and Eritrea from resuming their war and potentially throwing the entire Horn of Africa into new turmoil.

Ethiopia and Eritrea: Stopping the Slide to War,* the latest briefing from the International Crisis Group, warns of the real risk of renewed conflict and calls on the international community to move fast to stop it. The UN Security Council and the U.S. in particular must give both sides the clearest message that no destabilising unilateral action will be tolerated, and that the parties must comply with their obligations under international law, disengage on the ground and restore the demilitarised Temporary Security Zone (TSZ).

“The military build-up on both sides has reached alarming proportions, and war could break out again within weeks,” says Gareth Evans, Crisis Group President. “There will be no easy military solution if that happens: we are looking at a protracted conflict on Eritrean soil, destabilisation of Ethiopia and a horrible new humanitarian crisis”.

Both sides had agreed in Algiers in 2000 to submit their border dispute to the Boundary Commission and accept its decision as final and binding. However, since its ruling in April 2002, Ethiopia has blocked physical demarcation of the border; Eritrea, with legal right on its side, then alienated many of its supporters by blocking the work of the UN peacekeepers. The issue will come to a decisive head – with a real risk of fighting breaking out – at the end of November, when the Boundary Commission has indicated it will close down unless it is allowed to proceed to demarcation.

The UN Security Council and the U.S. must urgently make it clear to both sides that no use of force will be tolerated and that a party that resorts to it will be held accountable. Specifically, the U.S. should send a firm message to Ethiopia, that it will take diplomatic and economic measures against it if it attacks Eritrea. The Security Council should pass a resolution reiterating its support for the Boundary Commission decision and requesting it to remain beyond the end of November.

The UN should also stress the requirements on Ethiopia to accept the Boundary Commission ruling and on Eritrea to withdraw its army from the TSZ. Members of the Security Council and other key international players should discuss economic incentives and disincentives that would likely be required to obtain cooperation in de-escalating the situation on the ground and implementing the Commission decision.

“In the next weeks, urgent outside assistance is needed to ensure that the shooting does not resume,” says Don Steinberg, Crisis Group Vice President for Multilateral Affairs. “International indifference or mistaken confidence could cost the people of the Horn of Africa dearly and lead to a new protracted conflict in the region”.

http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5136&l=1

[Beelzebubalicious]

This report was posted on November 1st. Gives some pretty clear evidence (at least so it appears to me) of preparations for war. Or, at least, both sides are trying real heard to make it appear as if they are.

Report of the Secretary-General on Ethiopia and Eritrea (S/2007/645)
I. Introduction

1. The present report is submitted pursuant to paragraph 12 of Security Council resolution 1320 (2000) of 15 September 2000, and provides an update on developments in the Mission area since my previous report, dated 18 July 2007 (S/2007/440). The report also describes the activities of the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE).

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/...J?OpenDocument

[Beelzebubalicious]

I heard a few stories from Eritreans describing atrocities committed by Ethiopian troops in Eritrea. That was in the 30 year civil war. Ethiopian troops behavior during the 1999 border war was also apprehensible. I don't think Ethiopia has a leg to stand on in terms of tradition or history.

[Jedburgh]

Jamestown Foundation, 31 May: Warlords or Counter-Terrorists: U.S. Intervention in Somalia

As the insurgencies in Afghanistan and Iraq continue to dominate headlines, a new front in the war on terrorism has opened in Somalia. At a brutal cost to Mogadishu's civilian population, once-discredited warlords have reinvented themselves as "counter-terrorists," seeking and apparently gaining U.S. support by characterizing their Islamist opponents as agents of al-Qaeda. The warlords have grouped together as the Anti-Terrorism Alliance (ATA) and insist they are dedicated to expelling foreign al-Qaeda members they allege are sheltered by the Islamic Court Union (ICU). Although nearly all the ATA warlords are cabinet ministers in the new Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) located in Baidoa, they have abandoned the TFG to pursue an unauthorized war against their Islamist rivals in Mogadishu. Allegations of U.S. funding for the unpopular ATA leaders are undermining U.S. efforts to stabilize the region...

[Jedburgh]

...another one from the Jamestown Foundation, dated 13 June:

Leadership Profile: Somalia's Islamic Courts Union

The crisis in Somalia may be entering a new phase. A union of Islamic courts has taken control of the lawless capital, Mogadishu. On June 4, after months of intense fighting, militiamen loyal to the Supreme Council of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), headed by Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, expelled the Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism (ARPCT) from Mogadishu. Last week, after pushing the ARPCT warlords out of the capital, the ICU asserted its authority by establishing three new Islamic courts in Mogadishu in areas previously controlled by warlords (Somaliland Times, June 6). They also advanced toward the warlord stronghold of Jowhar, a town 90 kilometers north of Mogadishu, sending fears that Somalia was headed for extremist Muslim leadership...

[Jedburgh]

From the Swiss-based ISN, 16 June: Washington's tactical error in Somalia

After 15 years of relative anarchy - with warlords controlling much of the country and an impotent-at-best interim government that was forced to hide itself away 250 kilometers from the capital city - the Islamic militias have won control of Mogadishu and the last key warlord strongholds.

This has come to fruition despite US backing for the warlords' opportunistically named "Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counterterrorism" - an alliance the majority of the population has grown to loathe for being synonymous with violence, complete lawlessness, and chaos.

Aside from stoking the fires of anti-American sentiment and creating enemies out of potential allies in a geostrategically significant location, Washington is being blamed by African and Western diplomats for the four months of bloodshed that ended in the Islamic militias' victory and claimed the lives of some 350 people, mostly civilians...

[Jedburgh]

...and again from ISN: A High-Stakes Game in Somalia

...With allegations and denials abounding that Ethiopian army regulars crossed into Somalia on 17 June, the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) -Islamic Court Union (ICU) talks scheduled for Yemen this week will take on added bite.

And with a UN official suggesting that arms are flowing into Somalia in contravention of an embargo, security in Somalia and in the Horn of Africa region could be set to deteriorate in the coming days and weeks...