ONOTHER WAR IN THE HORN"?

Africa Insight: Eritrea and Ethiopia are at it again: What will stop them going to war?
Zerihun Taddesse considers the prospect of a repeat Ethiopia – Eritrea war and warns that leaders of the two countries, Meles Zenawi and Isaias Afewerki, are leading the Horn of Africa to the precipice
Is another round of war between Horn of Africa rivals Ethiopia and Eritrea a distinct possibility?
Events of the last couple of weeks indicate that both countries might well sort out their long-standing border dispute militarily, again. This despite Ethiopia’s latest announcment that it will pull its troops back from the border.
The UN has been caught at the centre of it all. Eritrea last week ordered UN peacekeepers from the United States, Canada and European countries to leave the country within 10 days (by December 16). On October 5, Asmara banned UN helicopter flights as tensions along the unmarked Ethiopia-Eritrea border grew following the massing of troops on both sides of the 1,000 km border.
The United Nations’ Security Council on November 23 produced a Greek-drafted resolution, which was unanimously adopted, threatening the two countries with sanctions.
The strongly-worded resolution indicated that the Council is determined to consider the imposition of what are described as “complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio, and other means of communication, and the severance of diplomatic relations” if and when the two countries fail to heed its demands.
A key demand by the Security Council was for Eritrea to rescind the various restrictions it has imposed on the freedom of movement of the UN Mission in Eritrea and Ethiopia (UNMEE), including its ban of helicopter flights in the buffer zone between the armies of the two states.The restrictions, which Eritrea began to impose since the beginning of October this year, have virtually made the existence of the 3,000 strong mission – boasting 336 Kenyans in its ranks – meaningless.
The mission was forced to close down almost half of its monitoring stations and could not effectively perform its tasks even in the remaining ones.What’s more, it could not guarantee the safety and security of the peacekeepers, thus causing deep concern among troop contributing countries.
The UN tried to interact with the Eritrean authorities to obtain the rationale behind their actions and to see whether it could do anything to address their concerns.
But the officials, from the president down, refused to answer the UN, prompting Secretary General Kofi Annan to be uncharacteristically blunt by describing the Eritrean government as a difficult one to work with.
Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki counteracted by saying that both Annan and the Security Council “have forfeited their relevance in the matter.
”According to Afewerki, both the Council and Mr Annan can only assert their relevance if they act to force Ethiopia to accept the “final and binding” decision reached by the Eritrea Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC), a panel of five judges which was set up following the Algiers peace pact signed by the two parties in 2000.
After eagerly saying that it accepted the decision reached two years later, Ethiopia balked, citing its loss of territories such as Badme, the major flashpoint of the 1998-2000 war, as “unjust and illegal.” Some 70,000 people were killed in that war.
The latest UN resolution, even though an attempt to assert its relevance in the matter, does not appear to do Eritrea’s bidding by putting Ethiopia’s continued refusal to accept the decision as subject to sanctions.
Even if the resolution demands this acceptance, Ethiopia can still go on rejecting it and there will not be any sanctions imposed on it as a result.
Apart from the removal of the restrictions imposed by Eritrea, the Council is also warning the two countries to exercise “maximum restraint” or face the consequences.
This warning was apparently prompted by the systematic undermining of operations of the UN missionand increased reports of infiltration into the buffer zone, which is wholly on Eritrean territory, by Eritrean soldiers. It is feared that even the simplest of mistakes could trigger an all out war.
This foreboding, especially of the Secretary General, seems to underlie the Council’s demand “that both parties return to the December 16, 2004 levels of deployment, with immediate effect and completing this redeployment within 30 days, in order to prevent aggravation of the situation.”
By insisting on a return to pre-December 2004 levels of deployment, the Council is coming hard on Ethiopia, whose forward positioning of its troops since that time, which it maintains to be defensive, appears to have caused concern in Asmara.
Will these demands and the 30 days deadline bring about the desired result? Hardly.There are various reasons to support this.
Surprise invasion of 1998 First, Eritrea is largely under a one-man strongarm rule and has been so ever since its separation from Ethiopia in 1991 and its formal independence in 1993.
The early optimistic talk of democracy and development died down in the middle of the 90s with the regime sparking wars with neighbouring countries in a bid to divert attention from its heavyhanded treatment of its citizens at home.
These include a spatter with Yemen over the tiny Red Sea islands of Hanish, the long disagreement with Sudan and a short one with Djibouti.
Its invasion of the territories then under Ethiopian rule in 1998 came as a huge surprise to everyone — one might even say to the Eritrean leaders themselves.
There was no indication that these two countries, often parading the closeness of their ties through frequent visits to each other’s capitals, were having problems in demarcating their boundaries.
And, to be honest, there were none that warranted the bloody slaughter that followed.
The reason, to a large part, appears to be Afewerki’s need to have a foreign enemy to sustain himself in power, according to observers. And tasting defeat from Ethiopia, of all countries, seems to have made him bitter and his mind set on revenge.
The Boundary Commission’s decision appeared to have given him and his compatriots some sort of solace. But, again, Ethiopia is standing between him and his victory.
There’s also another reason why Asmara would not abide by the UN resolution and it has to do with the country’s economy.The 30-year “war of independence,” the cost of the 1998-2000 war, the predominance of agriculture (80 per cent), the absence of successful long-term development projects and the conscription of almost 10 per cent of it population into the military have more or less completely derailed development and resulted in an economy unable to sustain Eritrea’s war efforts.
Even the enthusiastic diasporas that pitched in during the first war have become disaffected since 2000.
But, nevertheless, Afewerki and his ministers have been busy in the arms market purchasing two MIG-29 fighter jets and a number of helicopters from Russia. The two countries have even signed an agreement on “the modernisation and new supply of aircraft for the Eritrean Air Force between 2005-2008.”
Hence, Afewerki and his ministers know full well that the Eritrean economy with a GDP of a little more than US$4 billion, cannot sustain a conflict posture against Ethiopia for long. And they may realise that with all the problems it has internally, now is the best time to fight the regime in Addis.
In contrast, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s government faces a different kind of dilemma with basically the same results. The growing opposition to his government illustrated by the impressive performance of the increasingly vocal opposition parties in the May polls, must have got Zenawi thinking hard about the prospect of ending up with a minority government.
As if shocked by the reality, the government reacted swiftly: security forces faced demonstrators protesting the election results with full force, killing more than 80 people in two separate incidents, months apart, and arrested the top opposition leaders.
Meles must have realised that the massive popular support that is necessary to conduct a major war, which existed in 1998-2000, will hardly be there should another war with Eritrea erupt.
And the opposition bloc is still active enough to make the going tough for him and his ruling clique once they engage in a war.
But then the Ethiopian region bordering Eritrea is Tigrai, where the dominant faction of the ruling party comes from, and all of the contested areas are to be found in this region.Will Meles risk it all by going to war with Isaias, with whom he is said to be distantly related?
The answer, even though highly tilted towards the positive, will depend on Meles’s specific power calculations of the moment and the behavior of the regime in Asmara.
Another factor that appears to be driving the two countries closer to war is the arms race they have been engaged in and the role played by countries such as China and Russia. Eritrea’s economy is being drained by this race and Russia has a hand in it.
Russia has been the single major supplier of arms to both Ethiopia and Eritrea. A Russian newspaper reported recently that the former superpower began to export arms into the Horn in 1995. Russia had supplied a total of 12 helicopters, five MIG-29s, and 200 anti-aircraft shoulder missiles before the war.
Left overs from Mengistu days Ironically, these weapons were to be used against others imported by Ethiopia from Russia. Ethiopia, which had the added advantage of having lots of Russian military hardware left over by the regime of Mengistu Haile-Mariam, which was supported by the Soviets, reportedly also bought more military hardware from Moscow, including 10 self-propelled artillery systems.
The trend continued in 2002 when Ethiopia reactivated a contract signed with Russia to the tune of US$200 million.
What this report reveals is just the tip of the iceberg since most of the transactions of this nature are conducted in secret, hence the relative paucity of data on the issue.
Even more difficult to pinpoint is China’s military contribution to the escalating tension in the Horn. But the frequency of visits by officials of the two countries to China and vice-versa suggests an equal or more intense business activity.
How would another war between these two neighbours impact on the region? We don’t need to go farther than Somalia to find answers. Eritrea and Ethiopia have been reported by a UN panel as violating an arms embargo imposed on stateless Somalia in an attempt to stage their own proxy wars, basically undermining the peace deal brokered largely by Kenya.
The panel, formally known as the Security Council Monitoring Group on Somalia, concluded that in spite of its denial, “shipments were sent from the Government of Ethiopia directly to TFG militia forces in Western Somalia.”
In addition, the UN panel reported that these forces receive logistical and training support from the Ethiopian army both in Ethiopia and Somalia. The UN also found that “another state in the region,” which diplomats say is Eritrea, is providing support to factions perceived to be opposed to the Ethiopian policy towards Somalia.
It appears that the Horn of Africa region is indeed heading for another major conflict whose implications may be more widespread than any war we have seen before. Our leaders, it seems, are leading us to the precipice.
Zerihun Taddesse is an Ethiopian freelance journalist.
Africa Insight is an initiative of the Nation Media Group’s Africa Media Network