Ethiopia-Eritrea Conflict
In late 2008, tensions on the Ethiopia-Eritrea border were as taut as they have been since the parties signed the ceasefire that ended their 1998–2000 war. The peace process launched by the Algiers Agreement has failed, yet there is no clear replacement or even framework for talks in sight. The Eritrea Ethiopia Border Commission (EEBC) closed its doors without having delimited the border on the ground in November 2007; the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) terminated its mandate in August 2008; Eritrean troops re-occupied the Temporary Security Zone. Ethiopia remains in control of areas that the EEBC's demarcation placed on the Eritrean side of the border, notably the symbolically important town of Badme and Ethiopian and Eritrean troops are face-to-face along their highly militarised border. Eritrea is steadfast in its position that the EEBC decision is final and has the backing of international law. Ethiopia, in turn, clings to the leverage it has by virtue of the de facto situation on the ground and its strong relationship with the United States. The stalemate is both durable and costly.
The Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), led by Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, and the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), led by President Isaias Afwerki, cooperated closely to overthrow the brutal Mengistu Haile Mariam regime in 1991. While the EPRDF joined with other parties to form the Transitional Government of Ethiopia, the EPLF assumed control of Eritrea and established a provisional government. In April 1993, Eritreans voted overwhelmingly for independence in a UN-monitored referendum. The EPRDF welcomed Eritrean independence and for the next several years the two states and leaders seemed to be prepared to put past conflicts behind them and cooperate on a broad range of economic and diplomatic issues.
However, by 1998 relations between the two countries had degenerated. Disputes between Addis Ababa and Asmara arose over land-locked Ethiopia's access to Eritrean ports of Massawa and Asab, questions of how the new Eritrean currency related to the existing Ethiopian currency, and disagreements over the precise location of their poorly demarcated border, among other things. The classic imperatives of state- and nation-building drove both regimes to set forth unconditional goals and refuse compromise on the vital issues of territoriality, legitimacy and identity.
In May 1998, Eritrean armed forces attacked the disputed border town of Badme, a use of military force that quickly escalated into full-scale war. The historical links and rivalries between the two peoples, ruling parties and leaders made the violence particularly bitter. Meles and Isaias characterise each other's behaviour as a betrayal, and both countries share a political culture that values absolute victory and zero-sum calculations over compromise and joint gains. This led both to be obdurate and made de-escalation difficult. The violence generated considerable casualties and huge costs on both sides. An estimated 70,000 to 100,000 people were killed, 1 million were displaced, and a generation of development opportunities was squandered.
After a period of military stalemate and unproductive negotiations, Ethiopia launched a major offensive in May 2000, broke through defences, and forced Eritrea to pull its troops back to pre-May 1998 positions. Following a June 2000 ceasefire agreement, the warring parties signed an internationally brokered agreement in Algiers in December 2000. An ad hoc group of states served as Witnesses to the agreements, including the Organization of African Unity (now Africa Union), Algeria, the European Union, and the United States.
The Algiers Agreement established a ceasefire, created a 25-kilometre temporary security zone (TSZ) to be patrolled by UNMEE and the EEBC to delimit the border, and a claims commission to assess liability for war damages. On the issue of the border, the agreement followed African practice and confirmed colonial borders. Under Article Four of the agreement, the EEBC was charged to ‘delimit and demarcate the colonial treaty border based on pertinent colonial treaties (1900, 1902, and 1908) and applicable international law’ and this determination was final and binding. The commission explicitly was not empowered to make decisions ex aequo et bono, that is, on the basis of equity considerations.
Although the ceasefire has held, the other core provisions of the Algiers Agreement have not been implemented and the overall framework has failed. In April 2002, the EEBC issued its determination and ruled that the town of Badme was on the Eritrean side of the border while other, less symbolically important areas claimed by Eritrea were on the Ethiopian side. The town of Badme was not the underlying cause of the conflict, but both regimes used it as the marker of whether it had ‘won’ or ‘lost’ the war, and hence whether the terrible sacrifices each made in the conflict were justified or in vain. Therefore, the control of this small desolate town became linked directly to the political fortunes – even survival – of both regimes. Isaias, for example, said that ‘pulling out of Badme may be likened to insisting that the sun will not rise in the morning … it is unthinkable’ (Tronvoll 1999, p. 1048).
Once the border ruling was clear, Ethiopian leaders strongly objected to it and did everything short of resumption of hostilities to delay compliance. In a September 2003 letter to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Prime Minister Meles dug in his heels and characterised the EEBC decision as ‘totally illegal, unjust, and irresponsible’ and called for an ‘alternative mechanism’ to demarcate the boundary.1 This public repudiation of the EEBC represented a fundamental challenge to the Algiers peace process and the principle of a final and binding agreement. Meles later issued a five-point peace initiative in November 2004 that declared acceptance of the border ruling in principle while simultaneously calling for peace-building dialogue. More recently, Addis Ababa has stated its unconditional acceptance of the decision but its initial rejection gives it little credibility on the issue.2
Eritrea, frustrated both by Ethiopia and by what it considered international appeasement of Addis Ababa, took measures to force the border demarcation issue in October 2005. Eritrea banned UNMEE helicopter flights, which led the UN to withdraw its forces from nearly half of its deployment sites. In November 2005, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 1640, demanding that Eritrea lift its restrictions, Ethiopia accept the EEBC's border demarcation decisions, and both states reverse recent troop mobilisation. The Resolution threatened to impose sanctions against Eritrea if it did not remove the UNMEE restrictions. Tensions in late 2005 were high and an International Crisis Group report argued there were ‘worrying signs that the countdown to renewed conflict may have begun’ (International Crisis Group 2005, p. i).
The initial US response to the crisis over UNMEE and the non-implementation of Resolution 1640 was an improvised unilateral initiative to break the impasse. Washington sent the Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, to the region where she met with Ethiopian officials, but was denied meetings in Asmara. A flurry of international meetings ensued: Representatives of the Witnesses to the Algiers Agreement convened in New York in February 2006, and the EEBC met in London with officials from Addis Ababa and Asmara in March and May 2006; these meetings did not break the stalemate. In May 2006 the UN Security Council reduced the size of UNMEE's force from 3,300 to 2,300.
After failing to bring Ethiopia and Eritrea together for talks in June 2006, the EEBC concluded that: ‘The situation is one which is beyond the Commission's powers to remedy on the grounds of manifest implacability’ (Plaut 2006). Ethiopia had moved from adamant refusal to accept the agreement to agreeing ‘in principle’ and then to accepting without qualification (while asking for further talks). Eritrea refused to accept the need for additional negotiations and would not meet with UN representatives. As one observer commented, Ethiopia ‘is guilty of throwing a tantrum’ but Eritrea's ‘passive-aggressive’ response has not helped (Pratt 2006, p. 339). The EEBC disbanded in November 2007, leaving the two parties maps with virtual demarcation, but without boundary pillars on the ground as called for in the Algiers Agreements. While the underlying conflict was not limited to the border issue, demarcating the border was a necessary prerequisite for progress on other issues.
Despite these tensions, the stalemate remained stable because neither Asmara nor Addis Ababa had compelling incentives to break the ceasefire. Because international law supports its position, Eritrea believes that the international community should force Ethiopia to comply with the final and binding EEBC decision. Ethiopia feels no need to alter the status quo since the agreement left it in control of Badme and the international community has not applied any significant pressure. Both regimes anticipate the imminent collapse of the other and believe that time is on its side. Tensions between the two states have been displaced from the frozen border conflict into support for each other's opposition movements and proxy conflicts in Somalia. When tensions increase, they tend to be displaced into surrogate conflicts rather than direct military confrontation on the border (Lyons 2006b).
Troubled Transitions, Regional Instability
The stalled Ethiopia-Eritrea peace process is intertwined with troubled political transitions and growing authoritarianism in both Addis Ababa and Asmara. Following the signing of the Algiers Agreement, and in part as a consequence of the war, the ruling parties in both states faced serious internal opposition. In both cases, the respective leaders effectively crushed challengers and arrested or expelled dissidents. In the ensuing years, neither has established the foundation for peaceful political competition and both rely upon force to stay in power. Eritrea and Ethiopia both have grown increasingly authoritarian since the ceasefire in 2000. The border issue and threats to the homeland have been used to justify restrictions on political activity, and the lack of democratic accountability in turn has allowed both regimes to maintain highly militarised and destructive policies. If the border issue is removed, then there might be new opportunities to promote political reform in both states.
Eritrea
Political change and the most basic respect for political and civil rights are desperately needed in Eritrea. In March 2001, shortly after the Algiers Agreement was signed, a group of 15 senior Eritrean officials signed a letter that criticised President Isaias and called for greater democracy. The letter was leaked and 11 of those who signed it, and many other supporters, were arrested in September 2001 and have been held without charge since then. Three were abroad at the time, including former Minister of Defence Mesfin Hagos, who has helped organise the Eritrean Democratic Party (EDP), an opposition group operating from exile.
The September 2001 crack-down was followed by the closing of private press, the arrests of students and others who offered critical voices, and the indefinite postponement of elections. The Eritrean Government became highly repressive and isolationist, arresting two Eritreans working for the US embassy in 2001, throwing out the United States Agency for International Development in 2005, and expelling nearly all international humanitarian organisations by 2006. International human rights groups, monitors of religious persecution, and media watchdogs all place Eritrea among the most repressive regimes in the world.3 Today, a very small leadership circle dominates all aspects of political, economic and social life. While the government is obviously fragile, it is less clear what might replace it. Past experience in both Eritrea and Ethiopia suggests that what appears to be a cohesive hierarchy from the outside is held together by accommodation. If the dominant institutions and leaders stumble, acquiescence can transform into violent dissent quickly (Reid 2005).
The Eritrean diaspora plays a critical role in supporting the current regime. Approximately one-quarter of the Eritrean population lives outside Eritrea, and Asmara is highly dependent on diaspora remittances. Given the history of the costly, prolonged war of national liberation and the legitimacy earned by the EPLF in leading this struggle, the diaspora has been reluctant to criticise Isaias. The 1998–2000 war mobilised the diaspora to increase their support in order to counter what was perceived to be another threat to their liberated homeland. However, during the last few years, diaspora support and the essential remittances have declined (Styan 2007).
Eritrean opposition movements have been plagued by factionalism, weakened by the vagaries of diaspora politics, and have had their commitment to national interests questioned by their association with Ethiopia. In January 2002, the EDP was born in exile, led by the former Minister of Defence, Mesfin Hagos, and some of the dissidents purged from the ruling party in September 2001. However, this party remained rooted in the diaspora and distant from developments within Eritrea. In February 2005 an opposition grouping called the Eritrean Democratic Alliance (EDA) was formed in Khartoum (Plaut 2005). The EDA held a series of meetings in Addis Ababa (February 2007, May 2008) to overcome its fractious nature, but its close association with the Ethiopian regime leads many to regard it as a tool of the neighbouring enemy.
However, the current authoritarian order in Eritrea can be sustained only at tremendous cost, and it inherently creates opposition and anger, even if underground and silent for now. Given the pervasive political repression, many Eritreans have withdrawn from political life. Resentment is reportedly high, particularly among families with children in military camps on the harsh border year after year (Gettleman 2007). The October 2007 attempted assassination of Simon Gebredingil, a senior internal security service official, raised additional questions about the coherence of the ruling party. Isaias has made Ethiopia's refusal to honour the Algiers Agreement and international collusion in that betrayal the principal theme of his public speeches for several years. If the border demarcation process can commence, as Asmara has demanded, Isaias will get a short-term boost in his popularity, but will inevitably face difficult internal political issues in the longer term.
Ethiopia
In Ethiopia, the ruling EPRDF party went through its own challenges following the signing of the Algiers Agreement, as the Central Committee of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (historically Meles’ support base) split into two rival factions. With his base in the Tigray heartland at risk, Meles took advantage of his central position within the broader EPRDF coalition to outmanoeuvre his rivals, sack and arrest a number of senior officials, and successfully weather the storm.
The next serious domestic challenge to the EPRDF took place in the 2005 parliamentary elections. These elections presented the Ethiopian people with a remarkable opportunity to express their political views by participating in a poll that for the first time in history offered them a meaningful choice. In contrast to earlier elections in 1995 and 2000, opposition parties did not boycott the poll, but instead competed vigorously across the most populous regions. Live televised debates on matters of public policy, opposition party access to state-owned media, and massive peaceful rallies in the final week of campaigning made it clear that these elections would represent a decisive moment in Ethiopia's political development. The Ethiopian people seized this opportunity with great hope and turned out in overwhelming numbers to express their choices.
However, a very chaotic vote counting process generated controversy and violent protests. According to official results, the EPRDF and allied parties won 367 (67 per cent) parliamentary seats, while the opposition took 172 seats (31 per cent), with 109 going to the Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD). The chief of the European Union election monitoring group concluded that the process ‘did not live up to international standards and to the aspirations of Ethiopians for democracy’ and many rejected the results as fraudulent (European Union Election Observation Mission Ethiopia 2005). Despite increasing its share of seats in the parliament from 12 to 172, important leaders within the opposition refused to accept this outcome, claiming they had irrefutable evidence that massive fraud had taken place. When the new parliament met in October 2005, some opposition leaders took their seats, but others, particularly leading members of the CUD, boycotted the assembly. Violence erupted in the first week of November and most top CUD officials were arrested. Ethiopian prosecutors formally charged some 131 opposition politicians, journalists and civil society leaders with crimes, including genocide and treason. A number of leading Ethiopians in the diaspora, including reporters working for the Voice of America as well as opposition party fund-raisers and managers of critical websites, were also indicted. By bringing these charges against its leading critics, the EPRDF effectively criminalised dissent and sent an unmistakable message that effective opposition would not be tolerated. The opening of 2005 had closed (Lyons 2006a).
While the opposition both inside and outside parliament has been marginalised, the EPRDF still faced fundamental challenges relating to two large constituencies that are essential for any Ethiopian regime to govern successfully. First, the EPRDF's Oromo wing, the Oromo People's Democratic Organization, has failed and remains in power through intimidation and ever more pervasive systems to monitor the population (Human Rights Watch 2005). Second, the May 2005 elections saw an almost complete sweep by the CUD in Addis Ababa and the other main cities.
According to a 2007 poll conducted by Gallup, only 17 per cent of Ethiopians had confidence in the honesty of their elections, suggesting that the outcome of the 2005 election is regarded as legitimate by a very small number of Ethiopians (Rheault 2008). In July 2007, most of the major opposition political leaders arrested following the electoral crisis of 2005 were pardoned after they signed documents admitting responsibility for the violence. However, the damage had already been done and the CUD fractured into several bickering factions.
Despite the weakness of the opposition, the April 2008 local elections suggest that the EPRDF plans to restrict political and civil liberties further. The opposition only managed to register some 16,000 candidates for the nearly 4 million posts up for election (Deibert 2008). Even parties that participate in the national parliament found it impossible to identify candidates or to campaign, particularly in the Oromo region. In addition to restricting political space, the ruling party deepened its control over the smallest, sub-community level of administration, the kebelle councils. While kebelles are quite small, some of the councils have up to 300 members. As a result, some 4 million Ethiopians in a country of 75 million are now part of an EPRDF-controlled council.
Civil society, already silenced by arrests in 2005, faced further restrictions. A ‘Charities and Societies Proclamation’ under consideration in 2008 restricts organisations engaged in human rights activities – an ‘assault on civil society’ according to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (Human Rights Watch 2008). The EPRDF reacted to the 2005 electoral scare by tightening restrictions and by deepening its penetration to the most local levels of administration.
The 2008 humanitarian emergency is another source of pressure on Meles Zenawi's government. In July 2008, the United Nations estimated that 10 million people – some 12 per cent of the population – were in need of food assistance (Benequista 2008). There are many reasons for the humanitarian emergency of 2008: poor rains; high food and fuel prices; multiple inter-linked conflicts; animal disease; and general inflation. Overall inflation reached 40 per cent in May 2008, driven in part by a surge in money growth and public sector borrowing since 2005 (IMF 2008). Food prices have also risen rapidly. An increasing number of Ethiopians are dependent upon the market to meet their basic needs, and inflation has left the very poor unable to turn to the market to feed their families. The EPRDF has not faced the types of food riots sparked by high prices that have occurred in many countries as a result of the global good crisis. However, Ethiopian cities – centres of political opposition – are growing rapidly. It is likely that the government will face increased pressures from urban dwellers for relief.
After 17 years in power, the EPRDF is in decline. The 2005 elections demonstrated high levels of opposition, but failed to usher in an orderly transition based on peaceful multiparty competition. The 2008 elections suggest that the EPRDF intends to retain power by further restricting opportunities for peaceful political competition and reducing space for independent civil society to operate. In the lead up to the critical national elections in 2010, the electoral process has been largely discredited by many in the international community, and more importantly by most Ethiopians. While repression and limitations on opposition have silenced political speech for the moment, it leaves the regime fragile and without the support of key constituencies.
War by Proxy
The border stalemate and the underlying problems of authoritarian political processes and fragile governments in Ethiopia and Eritrea are intrinsically linked to conflicts in the Horn of Africa and global policies focused on the region. Both Ethiopia and Eritrea have demonstrated the capacity and willingness to use proxy forces to undermine the other. Armed Ethiopian insurgent groups such as the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), and the Ethiopian People's Patriotic Front (EPPF) have received support from Asmara. Eritrea also has close relationships with Sudanese groups in Darfur and in particular with factions operating in eastern Sudan (Young 2006). By the same token, Ethiopia has supported Eritrean opposition movements.
In addition to supporting each other's insurgents and opposition movements, both Ethiopia and Eritrea compete against each other by supporting rival parties in neighbouring states. Addis Ababa is the major supporter of Abdullahi Yusuf and the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Somalia. Consistent with a deeply ingrained pattern of giving support to the enemy of one's enemy, Eritrea has provided assistance to the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC, now re-grouped as the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia based in Asmara) and Ethiopian opposition groups based in Somalia such as the ONLF and OLF, hoping to tie Ethiopian forces down in the East. While UN reports in late 2006 suggested thousands of Eritrean troops were in Somalia, very few were captured in the subsequent intervention by Ethiopia, suggesting that this number was substantially wide of its mark (Report of the Monitoring Group on Somalia pursuant to Security Council Resolution 1676; Tomlinson 2006).
This proxy conflict in Somalia escalated dramatically in December 2006. Key leaders within the UIC such as Hassan Dahir Aweys, former leader of the anti-Ethiopian al-Itihaad al-Islamiya, sought to provoke Ethiopia into war in late 2006 by making irredentist claims on the Ogaden. However, these threats were rhetorical rather than real since the UIC lacked the means to force Ethiopia out of the region. From the perspective of Addis Ababa, the dangers emanating from the UIC and the urgency for acting were due to threats from Eritrea and internal Ethiopian insurgent groups such as the OLF and ONLF. These regional and domestic adversaries had increased their military presence in areas controlled by the UIC. To Ethiopia, the potential that these threats would increase over time – rather than the ideology of the Islamic Courts, their irredentist claims, or their ties to al-Qaeda – compelled a response. Ethiopia acted pre-emptively by providing the military might to drive the UIC out of Mogadishu, to end the safe havens offered Ethiopia's enemies, and to bring the TFG to power in the Somali capital.
After a rapid and surprising advance the TFG, supported by Ethiopian troops, ousted the UIC and its affiliated militias that had controlled Mogadishu since June 2006. The TFG continued to rely upon Ethiopian military support to retain power and struggled to bring in key constituencies, most notably the powerful Hawiye clan leaders entrenched in Mogadishu as well as many of the moderate leaders within the diverse Islamic Courts movement. Many Somalis regard Ethiopian troops as foreign occupiers, and the extreme levels of violence have alienated important constituencies (Human Rights Watch 2007). Hopes that an effective Africa Union or United Nations force would be deployed to allow Ethiopian troops to withdraw never materialised (and were never realistic). Eritrea has continued to support factions of the Islamic Courts and helped create the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) in Asmara in September 2007.
In part, as a consequence of the escalation of conflict within Somalia, violence within the Somali region of eastern Ethiopia (the Ogaden) exploded in 2007. The ONLF, part of the original transitional government in Ethiopia, attacked an oil exploration camp in April 2007, killing civilians as well as Chinese workers. The Ethiopian Government responded with a fierce counter-insurgency campaign that depopulated large swathes of the region, disrupted markets, and resulted in a humanitarian emergency. Human rights monitoring groups report extremely high levels of abuse in the region.
The ONLF is seen by Addis Ababa as a particular threat for two reasons. First, it is perceived as part of a network of threats that link Eritrea, the Islamic Courts in Somalia, and the OLF with the ONLF. Firm control of the region is necessary to prevent this set of enemies from using the Ogaden as the weak frontier across which to attack the regime. Second, commercial interests in international oil and gas exploration in the region have risen lately. Ethiopia has signed deals with a number of international companies to explore for oil and gas in the Ogaden. The ONLF directly threatens the EPRDF's interest in protecting these contracts when it warns against pursuing exploration of ‘our people's natural resources’.
In June 2008 the TFG and one faction of the ARS signed a UN-brokered ceasefire agreement in Djibouti, but this had little effect on the violence in southern Somalia. The Shabaab militias and the more militant faction of the ARS based in Asmara rejected the agreement and continued to target TFG and Ethiopian officials. In August, splits within the TFG became more public as the President and the Prime Minister fought over the sacking of the mayor of Mogadishu. In addition, humanitarian workers were targeted for assassination, making it extremely dangerous to continue to provide food to the millions in need. There are few signs that the Djibouti agreement will succeed in bringing stability where so many earlier agreements have failed. Furthermore, there are indications that conflict is increasing in the Puntland and Somaliland to the north.
As is the case with domestic politics in both Asmara and Addis Ababa, conflict in Somalia has its own dynamics and is not predominantly a sideshow in the Ethiopia-Eritrea rivalry. Ending the Ethiopia-Eritrea proxy war is not sufficient to resolve the challenges of stability within Somalia. However, the larger regional insecurities are complicated and made more difficult to settle by the support by Asmara and Addis Ababa for various factions, motivated in part by the dynamics of their proxy war.
International Policy and the US Global ‘War on Terrorism’
Periodic humanitarian emergencies, the need to end the 1998–2000 border war between Eritrea and Ethiopia, the political crisis following the 2005 elections in Ethiopia, and the links between the Horn and terrorism in the Middle East have all generated periodic interest in the United States and the international community. However, what has been lacking is sustained attention and coherent diplomatic strategies that recognise the links among domestic, bilateral and regional dynamics. The United States, Organization of African Unity/Africa Union, and the UN played critical roles in the Algiers talks and worked together closely to coordinate policy, prevent alternative processes from developing, and apply concentrated pressure on both parties to accept the agreement. However, after this high level involvement to get the agreement signed, the international community paid little attention to the challenges of implementation. UNMEE was deployed along the border, the ceasefire held, and the EEBC proceeded with its hearings and made its demarcation decision in 2002. Little was done to push Ethiopia to accept demarcation or to advance the larger tasks of addressing the underlying causes of the conflict and building a framework for normal regional relations and more democratic domestic regimes.
The international community's response to the 2005 election crisis illustrates the limits to external leverage over a regime such as the EPRDF. In the immediate aftermath of the post-election violence and crackdown, major donors responded with both clear statements criticising the government and with the suspension of significant levels of assistance. In November 2005, for example, the United States and the European Union issued a joint statement calling for release of all ‘political detainees’, thereby challenging the government's contention that the leaders had been arrested on criminal grounds. The Development Assistance Group (DAG) for Ethiopia, which includes the United States and other major bilateral and multilateral donors, also adopted a tough posture and stated:
These disturbances weaken the environment for aid effectiveness and poverty reduction … As a result of the situation, the DAG is collectively reviewing development cooperation modalities to Ethiopia.
However, the ruling party remained unmoved. Addis Ababa repeatedly stated that the elections were free and fair, the response of security forces to demonstrations appropriate, and that charges against opposition politicians, journalists and civil society leaders were based on solid evidence and long-standing Ethiopian law. Over the course of the next year, the international community softened its criticisms and shifted its focus to other issues. Washington in particular became increasingly concerned about threats from radical Islamic groups operating in the Horn and looked to Addis Ababa for cooperation and intelligence. Ethiopian intransigence and US concerns about terrorism in Somalia led diplomats to accept a status quo they concluded would not change and to get on with other business.
The United States has played a particularly important role with regard to conflicts in the Horn of Africa. Washington had close ties to both Meles Zenawi and Isaias Afwerki who were characterised by the Clinton administration as part of a ‘new generation of African leaders’. These links led the United States to play a major part in the Algiers talks. Asmara and Addis Ababa both criticised Washington for its attempts to remain neutral during the process. Ethiopia and Eritrea were both included in Washington's initial conception of a global alliance against terrorism in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks and US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld visited both Asmara and Addis Ababa in December 2002. However, the US-Eritrean relationship quickly soured and Washington developed a very close strategic partnership on counter-terrorism with Ethiopia.
In 2006 Washington and Addis Ababa both opposed the Islamic Courts in Somalia, but for different reasons. Washington had concerns regarding links to al-Qaeda and other alleged extremist groups, and claimed that certain ‘high value’ targets (notably individuals Washington linked to the bombings of the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam) were in Mogadishu. The United States provided support for something called ‘The Alliance for the Restoration of Peace and Counter-Terrorism’, but this assortment of warlords soon came into conflict with elements of the Islamic Courts and was quickly pushed out of Mogadishu. From June to December 2006, Washington publicly supported the Khartoum talks between the TFG and the UIC.
However, in late November 2006 John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, circulated a draft resolution authorising Ethiopia to send troops into Somalia in support of the TFG. The final resolution (UN Resolution 1725) authorised non-neighbouring states to intervene, but the message from the United States was clear from the first draft: Washington had no objections to Ethiopia intervening in Somalia (International Crisis Group 2006). In December 2006, Assistant Secretary Frazer ratcheted up the rhetoric and characterised the Islamist leadership as ‘extremist to the core’ and ‘controlled by al-Qaeda cell individuals’ (Gollust 2006). While many have seen the subsequent intervention by Ethiopia into Somalia as an example of the United States ‘subcontracting’ the war on terror to a regional ally, Addis Ababa probably would have acted with or without Washington's tacit approval. However, the United States promoted the impression that it was working hand-in-hand with Ethiopia when the United States military command used its aircraft and high tech capacities to target what Washington regarded as al-Qaeda leaders in Somalia (Menkhaus 2007).
The close relationship between Washington and Addis Ababa associates the United States with the EPRDF regime in ways that distort other US policies. Washington's calls for democratisation and human rights in Ethiopia, for example, are not convincing when high-level officials simultaneously praise the regime's cooperation in the ‘global war on terrorism’. The two states have different interests in the Horn of Africa. Addis Ababa and Washington share concerns regarding extremist Islamic groups in Somalia, for example, but for different reasons. Ethiopia worries about the assistance these groups provide to the regime's enemies in Eritrea and among Oromo and Somali insurgent groups, while the United States is concerned with links to al-Qaeda. The challenges relating to growing authoritarianism, escalating tensions along the border with Eritrea, and the quagmire in Somalia are complicated further by the overlay of Washington's global war on terrorism. Washington feels it needs a close relationship with Ethiopia in order to pursue its strategic interests in the Horn of Africa. However, this relationship comes at a price. As with other pivotal states in difficult regions such as Pakistan and Egypt, these sometimes awkward bedfellows receive US support for security reasons but then pursue their own, sometimes brutal, agendas regardless of pressure from Washington.
While relations between Washington and Addis Ababa strengthened in 2006–2008, relations between Washington and Asmara plummeted to new lows. Eritrea was characterised by State Department officials as a state that ‘openly abuses its population and serves as a destabilising force in the region’.5 In August, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, suggested that Washington was ‘looking into’ whether Eritrea should be added to the state sponsor of terrorist list.6 This designation triggers certain economic sanctions, but would be largely symbolic in the case of Eritrea where Washington already has cut most non-humanitarian economic ties. Whether the actual sanctions would have any effect of not, the designation would be profoundly offensive to Eritrea. Asmara regards itself as the first country to engage in the war against al-Qaeda sponsored terrorism when it fought the Eritrean Islamic Jihad in the early 1990s and therefore deeply resents Washington's lectures on the subject.
While Eritrea is characterised as ‘playing a very negative role,’ its support for the OLF, ONLF and the broad UIC has not been defined by Washington as support of terrorism.7 During US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice's December 2007 trip to Addis Ababa, she emphasised her humanitarian rather than counter-terrorism concerns in the Ogaden, and publicly urged Ethiopian leaders to pay more attention to humanitarian issues.8 In 2008 Washington urged talks between the UIC and the TFG and between the Ethiopian Government and the OLF and ONLF. While Addis Ababa regularly labels both movements as ‘terrorist,’ Washington has not. The State Department did not place Eritrea on the state sponsor of terrorism list, but did designate it ‘not an active partner on counter-terrorism programs’ (US Department of State 2008). As relations with the United States have become hostile, Eritrea has actively constructed an alternative set of relations. Asmara re-established diplomatic relations with Khartoum and sought to improve its relationship with Yemen and Djibouti in 2007 in order to undermine the Sanaa Pact that linked Yemen, Ethiopia and Sudan in an effort to contain Eritrea. However, in June 2008 a border skirmish between Eritrea and Djibouti resulted in several casualties and Yemen began to complain that Eritrea was seizing Yemeni fishing boats and arresting their crews. In January 2003 Eritrea attempted to join the Arab League as an observer, although the Charter of the Arab League does not allow for an observer member and Eritrea's request remains pending. There are reports of close links between Libya and Eritrea. In 2006 Eritrean press recounted meetings with Iranian officials and others who shared Asmara's hostility to the United States (Reuters 2006).
The Ethiopia-Eritrea border conflict and the failed Algiers peace process are part of a regional security complex that links the border issue with conflicts at the domestic, regional and international levels. International policies toward Eritrea and Ethiopia are part of this system of relationships and conflicts. The impasse over implementation of the Algiers Agreements distorts US policy toward counter-terrorism in the region, for example, because Asmara emphasises the border issue in its dealings with Washington while the United States focuses on counter-terrorism. By the same token, the strategic partnership with Ethiopia, motivated by key US interests in counter-terrorism, links Washington to Addis Ababa's recalcitrance in the implementation of the Algiers Agreement as well as its policies in Somalia and the restrictions on domestic political and civil rights. By prioritising the ‘war on terror’ the United States provides a ready rationale for regimes in the region to label and target their political opponents as terrorists. As Washington and other actors have sought to shape developments in the Horn of Africa, the primacy of local dynamics and the limits to external leverage over matters of fundamental importance to regional actors is apparent. Actors in the region respond to the incentives created at the global level to characterise their pursuit of their regionally focused interests in terms that elicit international support. However, in the end local dynamics rooted in protracted conflicts and authoritarian political systems dominate developments on the ground.