Increasingly Bloody Border Conflict With Ethiopia Mars End of Eritrea’s Fifth Year of Independence

By Joshua Azriel

The ongoing border dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia has clouded Eritrea’s sixth year of independence. As the small African nation, located in the Horn of Africa and officially independent since May 1993, begins its seventh year, its army stands face to face with its Ethiopian counterpart.

In an interview with the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, Eritrean Ambassador to the United States Semere Russom stated that his government believes Ethiopia’s goal in the military conflict is to once again invade Eritrea, a nation of about three and half million people, which fought its larger neighbor to a standstill in the war that finally ended in 1993.

“They are trying to invade our country,” Russom charged. “The Ethiopians are violating the moratorium brokered by the Clinton government in June,” he asserted.

The latest round of fighting began in mid-February at Badma on Eritrea’s southwest border. The Eritrean Red Sea town of Assab. The Eritrean government accused the Ethiopian government, under President Meles Zenawi, of bombing civilian and military targets. Ambassador Russom says that because Assab is not a town in the territory still disputed by the two countries, Ethiopia’s goal must, therefore, include invasion.

The current conflict began in May 1998, when seven Eritrean border patrol soldiers crossed into Badma, a town in Ethiopian-occupied territory, under a flag of truce for border discussions. Ethiopian soldiers gunned down the Eritreans.

The Eritrean government, under President Isaias Aferweki, reacted swiftly by sending its military to chase out the Ethiopian forces occupying Eritrean territory. The Ethiopian parliament then declared war in May 1998. Eritrea’s army has since set up what it calls defensive positions inside its territory along the border.

Last June, Addis Ababa responded with bombing raids on the Asmara airport, just outside the city. In return the Eritreans bombed an Ethiopian airfield at Makale.

The land in dispute is located in the southwest region of Eritrea near the town of Badma. Ethiopian maps place Badma inside its borders. But maps dating back to the late 19th century, when present-day Eritrea was an Italian colony, locate Badma in Eritrean terrority. The Aferweki government has accepted an OAU proposal and withdrawn Eritrean troops from Badma.

The territory in contention is land with a few populated villages but mostly made up of barren landscape. The region’s agricultural areas are to the north and east.

Ambassador Russom believes the border dispute was a ruse for the Ethiopian attack. “Claim and counterclaim is normal over border issues,” he said. “My government has been proposing that this issue can be legally and peacefully solved.”

However, the Eritrean government has rejected a proposal by the Organization for African Unity (OAU) to withdraw its troops to territory it held before May 6, 1998. Instead the Eritreans have called for a third party to patrol the region in return for withdrawal. Russom’s government believes Ethiopia will try to invade Eritrean borders again because of Addis Ababa’s rejection of a call for cessation of hostilities.

With prodding from the Clinton administration, both countries ceased open hostilities last summer but continued their war of words. In January of this year former U.S. National Security Adviser Anthony Lake traveled to the region to search for an end to the territorial dispute. One of the main issues Lake addressed was refugees.

According to Russom, more than 54,000 Eritreans or Ethiopians of Eritrean origin living in Ethiopia have been deported by Ethiopia. This is about one-third of the 130,000 Eritreans the United Nations has reported living in Ethiopia.

“They have deported Eritreans who have lived in Ethiopia for two generations,” Russom said. “Many had Ethiopian citizenship. Others who did not even speak Eritrean languages are being ethnically cleansed.” (There are nine Eritrean languages.)

Russom said his government does not have a similar policy for the 100,000 Ethiopians living in Eritrea. Instead they’ve been allowed to choose whether to stay or return to Ethiopia. U.N. reports indicate a little under 30,000 Ethiopians have returned home.

Former Allies

Eritrea won independence after its 30-year fight against two successive dictatorships. Both nations’ present leaders were, at one time, the heads of their respective rebel military forces and were allied in their struggle first against former Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie and then, in the 1970s and 1980s, against the brutally repressive military regime of Col. Mengistu Haile Mariam. Aferweki’s Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) and Zenawi’s Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) worked closely to overthrow both dictatorships and toward Eritrea’s independence.

“For 30 years, we fought for independence with Ethiopians fighting alongside us, but they’ve regressed to wanting to occupy Eritrea again,” Russom charged.

Ethiopia’s President Zenawi and key members of his government come from Tigray, the northern region of Ethiopia now contesting its borders with Eritrea. Many Eritreans believe the Tigrean political leadership in Ethiopia is behind the war with Eritrea and does not have the support of the Ethiopian people.

Eritrea was also party to a dispute with Yemen over islands in the Red Sea which has been settled by the International Court of Justice. The court divided the disputed islands between the two countries and guaranteed Eritrean fishermen the right to fish around the Yemeni islands, but not vice versa.

Despite the two conflicts, Eritrea has actively charted its own economic course during its six years of independence. Because it has turned down several types of loans offered by international institutions, Russom says that his nation is nearly debt-free in comparison with other African countries.

Nevertheless, Eritrea borrowed a little over $100 million from the World Bank in 1998 for the development of two sea ports and medical institutions. Other financial aid donors include the African Development Bank and the Arab Development Fund.

“We do not believe in rejecting loans, but in making wise use of them,” Russom said. “We don’t encourage loans just to have them. What we do encourage is that the loans enable our country to work for itself.”

He said his government accepts foreign aid under the condition that it implement its own development programs with the advice but not direction of outside institutions or governments. The Eritrean government borrows only what it needs for a specific project or program. “We do not ask for aid that involves further dependency,” Russom explained. “We are trying to put things in such a way as to fit into our national program.”

Eritrea attracts private investment. In January a Coca-Cola plant opened in Asmara, the capital, which is situated in cool uplands high above the coastal plain that is the scene of the border disputes.

The American oil company Anadarko is exploring Eritrean waters in the Red Sea for potential petroleum deposits. Russom also points to Korean, Australian, and Canadian companies exploring mineral sites throughout the country.

Whether or not there is an end in sight for the war with Ethiopia, Russom asserts that Eritrea will continue along its path of economic development.

The government’s economic figures indicate that since 1994 annual growth has been between 5 and 8 percent. Eritreans living overseas, particularly in the Arabian Peninsula and Gulf States and in the United States, are the main source of hard currency, sending about $300 million annually to the African country. This is one reason the Eritrean leadership insists that its dispute with Ethiopia will not impede its continuing economic development.

Joshua Azriel is a reporter for mid-Florida Public Radio and a graduate student at the Univ. of Florida.