Introduction
Tensions between Eritrea and Ethiopia are nothing new. In fact, quite to the contrary, tensions between these two countries seem to be a permanent fixture in the Horn of Africa. Peaceful coexistence between these countries has been the exception rather than the rule over the last three decades of Eritrean statehood and the preceding decades of civil war. While friendly relations have been fleeting, tensions have persisted for decades and have been accompanied by armed confrontations. Prior to Eritrea’s independence in 1993, there had also been a long and bloody conflict that many Ethiopians perceived as a civil war and Eritreans viewed as a war of liberation. Therefore, from 1962 to the present, there has been a long history of tensions and violent conflict punctuated by brief episodes of peace. Much ink has been spilled on the genesis of the difficulties between Eritrea and Ethiopia. While many have attempted to analyze the origins of the perennial tensions between the two countries, very little has been said regarding the pathway towards peaceful coexistence. Generalities and platitudes abound, especially during the occasional lulls in tension. However, very few detailed and specific proposals have been put forward and subjected to public debate and scrutiny. The purpose of this essay is to lay out the broad outlines of how Ethiopia and Eritrea could transcend their troubled history and build a shared future of peace and prosperity.
IThe road map toward a better future for Ethiopia and Eritrea must begin by identifying the key factors that have fueled tensions and conflicts between the two countries. The first factor to note is the nature of the Eritrean state. As most observers would agree, the Eritrean state is not a normal state. It is characterized by a near-total militarization of society, the absence of basic institutions, rules, and procedures of modern governance, and a lack of openness to the world. The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) has not managed to graduate from a ‘liberation front’ to a ruling party focused on governance, despite changing its name to People’s Front for Democracy and Justice in the mid 1990s. The absolute personalization and centralization of power in President Isayas’s hands, someone who has been at the helm for more than half a century both as a rebel leader and a President, have exacerbated this problem. Eritrea is administered less as a modern state and more as the personal fiefdom of a traditional warlord from medieval Ethiopia. Another factor worth noting is the insecurity of Eritrea’s political class regarding Eritrea’s continued existence as a sovereign state. There is a persistent fear among Eritrean politicians, even among dissidents and critics of President Isayas, that Eritrea’s larger, more populous neighbor could try to quash Eritrea’s independence. This fear is compounded by Eritrea’s demographic and economic decline. Eritrea has not thrived since its independence. Once the most economically advanced province of Ethiopia, with a growing industrial base and a dynamic private sector, it has now stagnated economically and hollowed out demographically. This is mainly the result of the oppressive and militarized style of governance adopted by President Isayas. This sense of insecurity is cynically exploited by the regime for its own survival. Hence it is in the interest of those in power to amplify and perpetuate this pervasive insecurity and anxiety.
Another important factor in the mix that generates mistrust and animosity between Eritrea and Ethiopia is the widespread view among Ethiopians that Eritrean secession was formalized in a flawed manner, compromising Ethiopia’s national interest to retain sovereign access to the sea. Many in the Ethiopian political class question the legitimacy of the 1993 Eritrean referendum and the manner in which Eritrea’s independence was recognized by a Transitional Government that appeared to be beholden to the Eritrean Liberation Front. In particular, this grievance underscores the Transitional Government’s total indifference to the complete loss of Ethiopia’s coastal territory. The role the UN played, with the active involvement of its then Egyptian Secretary General, in facilitating this process has also fueled these misgivings.
IIThese factors have created an environment of mistrust and hostility between the Ethiopia and Eritrea. A recurrent manifestation of this hostility is the fact that Eritrean government has consistently funded Ethiopian rebel groups and insurgents as proxies to destabilize Ethiopia. Eritrea seems determined to overcome its insecurity by sowing violence, disorder and chaos and promoting political fragmentation in Ethiopia. The ‘Isayas doctrine’ holds that Eritrea’s “continued statehood as a sovereign country is contingent upon Ethiopia’s insecurity, fragmentation, and instability. It is a doctrine that predicates Eritrea’s security on Ethiopia’s insecurity.” On the other side of the equation, successive Ethiopian governments have been forced to respond to Eritrea’s hostile acts and outright belligerence. This pattern, coupled with grievances over the loss of sea access, has hardened attitudes in Ethiopia toward the Eritrean state.
Therefore, what we have now is a rising level of tensions and a vicious cycle of recriminations. Ethiopia points out to Eritrea’s incursions into its territory and material support for armed groups bent on destabilizing the country. Eritrea’s deep involvement in the political and security crises in the northern Ethiopian regional State of Tigray has particularly brought the situation to a boiling point. In an alliance they have dubbed “Tsimdo”, the Eritrean government and the politico-military outfit called the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front have created a common cause that is openly hostile to the Ethiopian Government. With Eritrean backing, active support, and encouragement, the hardline TPLF group is gearing up for an armed conflict with the federal government by openly abrogating from the Pretoria Agreement. From the vantage point of Addis Ababa, the rump-TPLF is increasingly looking like an appendage of the Eritrean government. Eritrea, on the other hand, alleges that Ethiopia harbors an intent to annex Eritrea’s coastal territories.
IIIOvercoming this troubled history and current reality to build a future of coexistence, peace, and prosperity between Ethiopia and Eritrea is of paramount importance. As we can learn from the unraveling of the Pretoria Peace Agreement between the government of Ethiopia and the TPLF, unless the Eritrean question is tackled, internal peace and stability in Ethiopia would be difficult to maintain. Bearing this in mind, the following steps become imperatives for building peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia.
Normalization of the Eritrean State
It would be difficult for Eritrea maintain normal relations with any country, let alone with its neighbors, as long as it adopts abnormality as its modus operandi. In practical terms, normalization would mean an end to the indefinite and mandatory national military service. A nation of conscripts held in perpetual servitude is bound to resort to external aggression as a means to deflect internal frustrations. Most Eritreans born since independence have not experienced normalcy, including getting an education, building careers and businesses, and starting a family. They have been deprived of the opportunity to make their own life choices and pursue their own dreams. Most have been forced to choose between exile and indefinite military service, which is tantamount to a modern form of slavery. Eritrea is unique among modern states in lacking a constitution, parliament, budget, and similar instruments of public administration and service provision. Instead of the state serving the people, it seems that in Eritrea, the people live primarily in the service of the state. Civic duty has been debased into servitude and bondage of the worst form. The extreme level of oppression and coercion, the absolute personalization of power without a semblance of constitutional rule and representative government, make Eritrea an oddity in the 21st century.
This oddity makes normal relations with any neighbor or state improbable. To perpetuate this abnormality, the Eritrean government has closed off the Eritrean state from the rest of the world. Internet access, trade and investment relations, and travel; most things that everybody else considers routine forms of international cooperation are very restricted in Eritrea. Isolation is an imperative of regime survival. According to UN estimates, nearly 80 Eritrean footballers and officials have defected while on international duty since 2009. This is just one example of why the Eritrean government feels the need to shut down its borders and exist in isolation from the rest of the world. Openness would expose its brittle legitimacy to elements that would make it crumble.
External efforts to normalize relations with Eritrea fail because normal diplomatic relations and economic cooperation pose a grave risk to regime security and survival. Therefore, attempts to normalize relations with Eritrea should be preceded by a call for and a push towards the normalization of the Eritrean state. Normalization does not mean turning Eritrea into a democratic utopia or an exemplar of civil liberties. Normalization would require a pragmatic and gradual transition of the Eritrean state from a garrison-state to one in which the social and economic wellbeing of citizens becomes the primary consideration of the state. A garrison state cannot help but interact exclusively in military terms with its neighbors. It won’t have the instruments, the vocabulary or the imagination for any other form of interaction.
Normalization of relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia
For the normalization of the Eritrean state to be sustainable and possible, there is a need to normalize relations with Ethiopia simultaneously. Durable normalization of relations with Ethiopia is a pre-and-co-requisite for the normalization of the Eritrean state. Eritrea’s relations with Ethiopia is very unique. Ethiopia is the biggest neighbor and a country with which Eritrea has the deepest and most comprehensive historical and social ties. Despite the complicated history of the two states, Eritreans and Ethiopians share a strong cultural affinity and social bonds. Ethiopia also looms large in the imagination of the Eritrean political class, providing the foil in the attempt to develop a distinct Eritrean identity. Therefore, normalization of relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia is far more consequential than normalization of relations with any other country.
The periods between 1993-1998 and the period between 2018-2022 offer important lessons for all those interested in normalizing relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea. During both periods, the top leadership of the Ethiopian government maintained warm and friendly relations with Eritrea. President Isayas and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi were once comrade in arms and had a strong personal rapport. Prime Minister Abiy and President Isayas, despite their different backgrounds and significant age differences, had also developed a warm friendship. However, in both instances, a sustained partnership between the two countries could not take root. Quite the contrary, tensions flared, and hostilities broke out. In both instances, the lack of willingness and ability on the Eritrean side to agree on an institutional framework for partnership and friendship was a primary factor that led to a breakdown of relations. That is why normalizing relations would be improbable without some level of normalization and institutionalization of the Eritrean state.
Normalization of relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia would require agreeing on;
At least a provisional settlement of border issues and disputes in a manner that would foster peace and stability;
An agreement on a framework for security cooperation and mutual non-aggression and non-interference assurances;
An agreement on the mechanisms for border trade, economic exchanges, and investment relations;
An agreement on transit, travel, immigration, and residence matters;
An agreement on logistics, transport and maritime cooperation including the modalities for Ethiopia’s utilization of the port of Assab.
These would be the pillars of the normalization of relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Given the mistrust and level of acrimony that has existed between the two states, agreeing upon these pillars would need the support of trusted third parties whose interests are aligned with long term stability and peace in the Horn of Africa.
Long Term Arrangements for Sustained and Institutional Cooperation
Normalization of relations cannot be the ultimate objective between Eritrea and Ethiopia. The depth of the bond between the peoples of the two countries and the vast potential of a strong partnership call for a more ambitious long-term agenda. In the absence of such a long-term prospect of a closer partnership, normalization could also be fragile and precarious. Ethiopia and Eritrea should aspire to an economic community or other forms of association that would usher in an era of economic integration and shared prosperity as a foundation for long term peace and stability. The overwhelming majority of Eritreans and Ethiopians are young people who were born well after the die was cast on the tragic history of conflict and fratricide. Whatever the mistakes and faults of their forefathers, the new generation of Eritreans and Ethiopians could write a new chapter of peace and cooperation. This cooperation, based on the free will and desire of the two peoples should be modeled after the post WWII cooperation of Germany and France. Drawing inspiration from these two European states whose partnership provided the basis for the wider European Union, Ethiopia and Eritrea could also lay the foundations for a common wealth of the Horn of Africa. This kind of cooperation and economic integration does not mean that any one country would lose its sovereignty. It is, in fact, the ultimate exercise of one’s sovereignty. A robust economic integration buttressed by political and security cooperation would provide the framework for shared prosperity. It will also enable the people of the two states to transcend their troubled past.
This is the strategic vision, from an Ethiopian perspective about the relations of the two countries. Regardless of the position of the current leadership in Eritrea, this is the manifest destiny of the people of the two countries. Well-meaning actors with a stake in the stability of the Horn of Africa should support this vision. The alternative would be a messy state collapse in Eritrea that would enable rival generals, terrorist groups, and networks of human traffickers to fill the vacuum that will inevitably arise when the music stops on the current dispensation of the Eritrean state. An orderly, pragmatic, and managed transition would avoid a chaotic and costly undertaking further down the line. Otherwise, the world would have to face serious threats to the security of the Red Sea as well as the prospect of millions of additional migrants pushed in all directions. A more positive and brighter future is possible. Ethiopia stands ready to be part of and work towards this future.
Source,Author: IFA’s Horn of Africa Program.
