ETHIOPIA-ERITREA: Border Dispute Poses Threat To Stability

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Laeke Mariam Demessie and Moyiga Nduru

ADDIS ABABA-HARARE, May 20 1998 (IPS) - A border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea poses yet another threat to stability in the Horn of Africa, a region that already has more than its share of conflicts.

Efforts to mediate between the two neighbours have thus far proved fruitless, with each side blaming the other for the dispute.

The conflict surfaced on May 13 when the Ethiopian council of ministers accused Eritrean forces of occupying part of the northwest of the country on May 12. Eritrea promptly denied the accusation, saying its forces merely retaliated after Ethiopian militia violated its borders on May 6.

“We did not move an inch outside of our territory,” said Eritrean Ambassador to Ethiopia Girma Asmerom. Bombarded by angry Ethiopian journalists, he said Eritrea had only retaken the area of Badmen, which he claimed had been captured by Ethiopian forces six months earlier.

On Tuesday, Ethiopia’s Foreign Minister, Seyoum Mesfin, told diplomats and heads of international organisations in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, that “Eritrea’s aggression has immense implications for the countries in the sub-region”.

If it was not resolved, he said, it could eventually engulf the entire Horn of Africa, already plagued by conflicts such as Somalia’s clan war, and rebellion in Sudan and Ethiopia.

A similar warning was sounded by Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Osman Taha. He told journalists last week in Khartoum that Sudan preferred a peaceful solution to the Ethiopia-Eritrea dispute so as to avoid a fresh influx of refugees.

Sudan hosts a sizeable number of refugees from Ethiopia and some 500,000 from Eritrea, most of them people who fled the country during a 1961-1991 rebel war.

Fear that the Horn might be plunged into further chaos led Djibouti President Hassan Gouled Aptidon to fly to Ethiopia last week in a bid to mediate between the two countries. Aptidon chairs the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) which groups Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, Kenya and Uganda, and which has been trying in vain to settle the region’s conflicts.

The Djibouti president had talks with Ethiopia’s head of state Negasso Gidada and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, but nothing was achieved. Nor have similar attempts by the U.S. State Department Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Susan Rice, and by the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) yielded much fruit.

Mesfin said on Tuesday that Ethiopia would only consider negotiations when Eritrean troops withdrew unconditionally from its territory. “There is no alternative but the establishment of the status quo…that prevailed prior to the invasion,” he said.

He said the territory occupied by Eritrea had never been subject to any dispute, and belonged to Ethiopia before and while Italy ruled Eritrea. Ethiopia, he added, would handle the crisis with care, hoping that “dangerous developments” would be averted, “but if this failed, it cannot be our responsibility”.

Details of the skirmishes between the two countries have remained sketchy.

A pro-government newspaper “The Reporter” claimed in Addis Ababa on May 18 that “when the Eritrean forces invaded Badmen and Shiraro districts, two-thirds of the Ethiopian militia and 608 Eritrean soldiers were wounded” while unconfirmed sources said up to 100 people from both sides were killed.

Four days before, the Eritrean government had put out a statement accusing Ethiopia of starting the fight. “On May 6, 1998, while an Eritrean delegation was on its way to Addis Ababa for a meeting … the Ethiopian army … penetrated the areas around Badmen, opened fire and caused grave damage on Eritrean units that attempted to approach them for dialogue,” it said. “This unprovoked attack subsequently triggered a cycle of clashes in the area.”

The Reporter, quoting government officials, said Eritrean Defense Minister, General Sibhat Ephrem, was in Ethiopia to discuss the border incidents. “During the discussion he was informed that the Eritrean army was crossing the Ethiopian border and was advised that if this happened it could lead to a grave situation,” added the paper.

Girma told IPS last week that five districts were under dispute, some of them occupied by Ethiopian forces, and others by the Eritreans.

As tension mounted, the Addis Ababa city administration urged residents to be on alert and resist the “unprovoked” aggression by Eritrea. However, it said in a May 17 statement that “Eritreans residing in the capital are safe and are leading peaceful lives as usual.”

About half a million Eritreans live in Ethiopia, mostly in Addis Ababa, and some of them hold top positions in the Ethiopian government. Girma said 120,000 Ethiopian nationals lived in Eritrea. The majority work in the port of Assab, Ethiopia’s only outlet to the Red Sea.

The history of the two countries is closely intertwined. Sections of what is now Eritrea were part of the Ethiopian and Ottoman empires, and even of Sudanese and Egyptian fiefdoms until 1889, when Italy colonised the area.

Italian rule was followed in 1941-1952 by British military administration, and later by a federation between Eritrea and Ethiopia. However, then Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie gradually reduced Eritrea’s autonomy, sparking a guerrilla war that began in 1961, one year before he reduced Eritrea to an Ethiopian province.

That bush war ended in 1991 with Eritrea’s independence from Ethiopia.