< < <
Date > > >
|
< < <
Thread > > >
Obstacles to Peace in the African Horn
by alexy2k gerard
16 March 2000 21:14 UTC
Hello Folks
A conference tookk place at Stanford University on
the Ethio/Eritrean War in late February. The
panelists
on the Eritrean side
were Dr. Assefaw Tekeste, Professor Roy Pateman, and
Professor Okbazghi
Yohannes. The conference was organized by the Center
for Strategic Decision
Research.
Below please find the ten minute prepared statement
that was delivered by
Professor Okbazghi Yohannes.
____________________________________________________
Obstacles to Peace in the African Horn
Okbazghi Yohannes, University of Louisville
It is my distinct privilege to attend an esteemed
gathering such as
this. May I take this opportunity to express my
deepest gratitude to the
organizers of this event, particularly the Center for
Strategic Decision
Research, for devoting the entire event to the
Ethio-Eritrean conflict.
As I was pondering a few days ago over what I
needed
to say at this
conference, I suddenly remembered reading somewhere
that conflicts are
always in the minds of men, not on the ground;
disputes
over an object or a
piece of land are simply external representations of
what are already in the
minds of men. This apt notation does indeed find
saliency in the case
confronting this conference. How else could one
explain the sacrifice of
tens of thousands of combatants at the war fronts and
the social dislocation
of hundreds of thousands of civilians for the sake of
a
tiny barren patch of
land without understanding the mind-sets of the
antagonists? I must admit
that, after thinking long and hard, I have reached the
unsavory conclusion
that the conflict and the consequent war between
Eritrea and Ethiopia over
Badame is a superficial representation of something
larger that has to do
with the mind-set of the Ethiopians in general and the
Tigrayan-controlled
regime in particular. Before elaborating on this
point,
I would like to
bring two cardinal questions to the attention of the
conference.
First, the fact that the Eritrean Government has
unequivocally accepted
the Algiers peace plan must be acknowledged in
contrast
to the intransigence
of the Ethiopian regime on the matter. The ball is
now
in Ethiopia’s court.
Therefore, the international community has an
obligation to bring sustained
pressure to bear on the Ethiopian regime to quit
dragging its feet and come
to the peace table.
The second question involves the gross
international
misperception
surrounding the nature and genesis of the conflict.
Precisely because they
ask the wrong questions, many journalists and even
scholars have difficulty
understanding how two former stalwart allies could
fight over a desolate
piece of land. Without a proper diagnosis of the
problem, no one could
squarely face the challenge of peace in the area.
I sincerely believe that the Ethio-Eritrean
confrontation over Badame is
a sheer pretext on Ethiopia’s side for a larger
ambition. In 1992, long
before the eruption of hostility between the two
countries, the British
human rights activist and keen watcher of African
politics, Alex De waal,
had actually foreseen a serious problem looming in
what
he termed
"Abyssinian fundamentalism". The Amhara and Tigrayans
of Ethiopia,
traditionally referred to as Abyssinians to
distinguish
them from the rest
of Ethiopians, have the antiquated notion of land and
sovereignty. Their
geographic definition of Ethiopia runs counter to the
modern conception of
territorial delimitation and the principle of
self-determination. It was
this fundamentalist orientation that fueled Ethiopia’s
thirty years war on
Eritrea, claiming that Eritrea was historically part
of
Ethiopia. Still
imbued with the same delusional perspective, the
Amhara
and Tigrayans had
been having difficulty accepting Eritrea’s
independence. Given this
mind-set, it was only a matter of time before the
Ethiopian regime embarked
on a belligerent policy against Eritrea.
The Adowa syndrome is the logical frame of reference
for Abyssinian
fundamentalists as the Amhara and Tigrayans have been
socialized into
internalizing the doctrine of Ethiopia’s almost
boundless territorial reach
and self-invincibility. The unavoidable consequence
of
this syndrome is the
belief that only a military solution is the viable
option. It is no
coincidence that the Ethiopian regime today draws a
bogus parallel between
Ethiopia’s victory at Adowa in 1896 against the
Italians and its seizure of
a very tiny piece of land around Badame a year ago.
Under the battlecry:
"Adowa victory repeated at Badame," the regime
temporarily succeeded in
calling a million Ethiopians to the streets of Addis
Ababa in its attempt to
create an unbridgeable gulf btween the peoples of the
two countries.
Although the Amhara and the Tigrayans share the
belief in "greater
Ethiopia ideology," watered by Abyssinian
fundamentalism and the Adowa
syndrome, there is an additional complicating factor,
having to do with the
emergence of a bellicose Tigrayan nationalism, one
that
seeks to establish
Tigrayan dominance in Ethiopian politics. We need to
recall that until the
mid-eighties the Tigray People’s Liberation Front was
wholly committed to
creating an independent Tigrayan state. However, it
soon dawned on the TPLF
leadership that Tigray, poorly endowed with natural
resources and surrounded
by Eritrea on the north and southeast on the one hand,
and by the Amhara of
Ethiopia on the south and west on the other, could not
and would not exist
as a viable state. So the TPLF leadership reversed
gears and embraced the
"greater Ethiopia ideology" as a means of realizing
their "greater" Tigray
ambition. In order to achieve this desideratum, the
TPLF judiciously sought
the simultaneous co-optation of Eritrean partnership
and containment of the
Oromo Liberation Front, the object being effective
displacement of the
Amhara and establishment of Tigrayan dominance. This
strategy was
responsible for the TPLF coming to power in Addis
Ababa
in May 1991.
Knowing full well that the TPLF, representing just
6% of Ethiopia’s 60
million people, could not rule Ethiopia without
enforcing horizontal ethnic
fragmentation, the leadership devised ethnic
federalism
as a stratagem to
anchor "greater" Tigray within the political framework
of "greater Ethiopia.
The stratagem allowed the Tigrayans to snatch
territories originally
belonging to the Amhara provinces of Wello and Gondar
under the pretext of
ethnic identity. However, the territorial
reorganization of "greater"
Tigray placed the TPLF leadership in a quandary
regarding the question of
how to incorporate territories that are within the
confines of independent
Eritrea.
In addition, the notion of "ethnic federalism" and
the TPLF’s
involuntary acquiescence in Eritrean independence in
exchange for EPLF
support soon created a legitimacy crisis for the
Tigrayan leadership since
the now alienated Amhara conveniently accused the
Tigrayans of betraying one
of the fundamentals of Abyssinian nationalism, namely
the territorial
indivisibility of Ethiopia, by allowing Eritrean
independence to take place.
As part of the effort to deal with the legitimacy
crisis confronting the
regime in Addis Ababa, the Tigrayan leadership
promptly
crafted two
complimentary strategies. The first is a minimalist
strategy designed to
strengthen the position of "greater" Tigray within
"greater" Ethiopia by
securing an access to the sea through the annexation
of
Assab, in the
southeastern region of Eritrea. The second is the
maximalist strategy, bent
on enlarging the territorial reach of "greater" Tigray
through the
reabsorption of the whole of Eritrea while at the same
time regaining the
entire Red Sea regions of Eritrea for Ethiopia. In
effect, the maximalist
strategy would undo Eritrea’s independence. Apart
from
denying their Amhara
rivals reason for opposing the Ethiopian regime, the
strategy, if realized,
would allow the Tigrayan leadership to solidify their
grip on power. Herein
lies the origins of the war between Eritrea and
Ethiopia. Badame is simply
a small outlet for the realization of the larger
Tigrayan ambition. The
Tigrayan leadership could have invented any other
incident to begin a
provocation or confrontation with Eritrea. In truth,
the fundamental
obstacles on the road to peace today are the general
Ethiopian mind-set and
the virulent nationalism of the Tigrayans. This is
something most analysts,
scholars and statesmen have failed to understand.
There are also two additional factors that are
reinforcing Ethiopia’s
intransigence. First in the past one-hundred years,
Ethiopia has benefited
from the services of a galaxy of expatriates, who
overtime developed special
bonds with Ethiopia and the charming elite of the
country. Most of these
expatriates have today become the unofficial
mouthpiece, propagandists and
defenders of the Ethiopian cause. Some of them are in
academia, others are
in government, and still others are in private
policy-making organizations.
These international propagandists in the Ethiopian
cause are the Pankhursts,
the Levines, the Erlichs, the Marcuses, the Claphams,
the Heinzes, and
Smiths of this world. Because of their expatriate
identity and their
connection to the world of knowledge and politics,
these individuals have
been able to effectively orchestrate and legitimize
the
Ethiopian regime’s
dangerously misleading diplomatic maneuvers, thereby
obscuring the real
cause of the Ethio-Eritrean conflict. They have thus
far succeeded in
effectively scuttling from the international radar
screen the humanitarian
dimensions of the conflict, particularly the plight of
the over 70,000
Eritreans and Ethiopian nationals of Eritrean origin,
deported by the
TPLF-led regime after confiscating their hundreds of
millions of dollars
worth of property. Even as recently as February 17th,
2000, neither
President Clinton nor Secretary Albright made a
reference to the
humanitarian tragedy besetting these deportees in
their
speeches before the
National Summit on Africa. Even the more starkly
bizarre thing was the fact
that Gail Smith, the Clinton Administration’s Senior
Director for Africa and
Ethiopia’s mouthpiece within the Administration, never
said a word on the
ethnic cleansing taking place in Ethiopia despite the
fact that the topic of
her speech before the National Summit was "Democracy
and Human Rights in
Africa." It is such callous indifference to the human
tragedy that has
given the Ethiopian regime a false sense of confidence
that it can prevail
over the Eritreans in international diplomacy. This
has certainly
reinforced the belligerently intransigent position of
the Tigrayan
leadership, making them blind to the larger picture
regarding the horrendous
consequences of the war.
The second factor reinforcing Ethiopia’s
intransigence is the myopic
belief of the Tigrayans that they could militarily
prevail over Eritrea
because of Ethiopia’s superior endowment in terms of
both population and
natural resources. The belief is, however,
delusional.
The truth is that
the ratio in the demographic and resource
distributions
has not changed for
in the past thirty years, the ratio in the demographic
and economic
distributions between Eritrea and Ethiopia was
one-to-eighteen, and the same
ratio holds today. The previous Ethiopian regime had
collected $11 billion
worth of military gadgets, and yet it could not
prevail
over the Eritrean
struggle. After all, nations are judged not by how
many resources they have
but by how they manage their resources in the
furtherance of the common
good, the welfare of their citizens, and of human
understanding and
cooperation. We Eritreans may be poor in material
resources and small in
number; but we are richly endowed with the valor,
ingenuity, imagination,
and resourcefulness of our people. Perhaps, what
distinguishes us from
those Ethiopians intoxicated with Abyssinian
fundamentalism is the fact that
we Eritreans have a sober understanding of the meaning
and purpose of life.
We deeply mourn over every fallen Eritrean martyr,
even
more so over our
disabled veterans. We never relish the killing of
Ethiopian soldiers
either. For us, the killing of Ethiopian soldiers is
like killing the
beloved children of our neighbor in order to save our
own children. For us,
this is a terrible, awful choice.
If a genuine peace is to be secured between
Eritrea and Ethiopia,
we Eritreans along with the Ethiopians ought to first
overcome our
collective emotional inadequacies and begin to think
like men of thought and
act like men of constructive action. Both sides must
realize that there are
two "sovereignties" at stake here, that there are two
competing
interpretations of history, and that there are two
competing visions of the
future. The purpose of a conference like this must,
therefore, be to create
a room, large enough to accommodate our differences
and our competing
visions. In this spirit, I thus propose the following
as the requisite
preconditions for a durable peace.
¨ First, both sides must agree to unconditional
cease-fire; the recalcitrant
side must be placed under sustained international
pressure.
¨ Second, both sides must agree to the insertion of an
international force
between the two countries to insure observance of the
cease-fire.
¨ Third, both sides must agree to the submission of
the
border dispute and
other outstanding issues between them, including the
humanitarian issues, to
an international tribunal for arbitration without
prior
qualifications by
either party.
Only then, when we move beyond our preconceived
mindsets and set ourselves
the sincere task of resolving this conflict will peace
be assured in the
region.
______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
< < <
Date > > >
|
< < <
Thread > > >
|
Home