Journal of Developing Societies

http://jds.sagepub.com The Post-war Border Dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea: On the Brink of Another War?
Abebe Zegeye and Melakou Tegegn Journal of Developing Societies 2008; 24; 245 DOI: 10.1177/0169796X0802400207 The online version of this article can be found at: http://jds.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/24/2/245

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The Post-war Border Dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea

On the Brink of Another War?
Abebe Zegeye
University of South Africa

Melakou Tegegn
Independent Researcher, Kampala

ABSTRACT
The claims and counter-claims over the troubled border between Ethiopia and Eritrea, at the root of the crisis between the two governments, were by no means resolved by the war of 19982000. Indeed, when the jointly-formed post-war commission delivered its ruling on the boundaries, its terms were rejected out of hand by Ethiopia. Eritrean border claims rest largely upon the maps drawn up by Italy in 1934, while Ethiopias claims largely rests on the treaty that Emperor Menelik entered with the Italians in 1908. And this is only to touch upon the ramications of the tangled dispute. This article provides a critical observation of the claims made by the two governments; it assesses the validity of these claims, explores their strengths and points out their weaknesses. It also shows why the impasse continues to fester, pushing the crisis dangerously close to renewed war, and offers some tentative suggestions on how a lasting solution to the Ethio-Eritrean crisis might be found. Keywords: Algiers Treaty, Assab, Badme, Ethiopian/Eritrean border dispute, ethnic movements, Italian imperialism

The ongoing conict between the governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea, neighboring states in the Horn of Africa, remains perplexing. Border disputes, inamed by political, economic and ethnic issues, erupted into a protracted war from 19982000 that claimed the lives of an estimated 200,000 men in uniform. When the ghting nally ground to a halt with the signing of a truce in Algiers in February 2000, observers were optimistic that the senseless war had gone some way toward resolving the crisis. This was not to be. According to the Algiers Treaty, both governments agreed

Copyright 2008 SAGE Publications www.sagepublications.com (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi and Singapore) Vol 24(2): 245272. DOI: 10.1177/0169796X0802400207

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to accept the border ruling reached by a jointly-formed commission, the EritreaEthiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC); but when the terms of the ruling were announced, Ethiopia atly refused to accept them. The intervening seven years since the end of the war have seen the border crisis and relations between the two governments worsen rather than improve a situation that has brought the two governments to the brink of another war. An analysis of the post-war situation, of the claims and counter-claims of Ethiopia and Eritrea, makes it necessary to look back at the origin of these claims. Many of the sources of the present border conict can be traced back to the days of the Italian colonization of Eritrea and Italys aggressive designs on greater Ethiopia. Some go back even further but are beyond the ambit of this article and its assessment of dawn of the third millennium in Ethiopia. Some Ethiopian Arguments Historical documents demonstrate consistently that during the height of European colonialism, the Ethiopian rulers relinquished land to Italy that was indisputably Ethiopian (Larebo, 2001). This was how Ethiopian rulers reacted to aggressive Italian imperial posturing. Once Italys colony became established as Eritrea in 1890, the Ethiopian government concluded a number of treaties with Italy in order to regulate the border between its land and the new Italian colony. The most signicant of these, according to Larebo, are as follows: (i) In the treaty of 2 May 1889 and its annexation of 1 October 1889, known also as the Wuchale Treaty, the Ethiopian government recognized as an Italian possession the land occupied by Italy on the northern and eastern frontiers of the country. The land in the north was named Eritrea. Italian possessions were later extended to include the port territory of Assab. However, these possessions did not have a uniform administration, nor did they come under complete Italian control. The eastern section, Assab, is a peninsula separated from the north, and lying between the land under Ethiopian administration and French Somaliland, or Djibouti. It remained an autonomous region until 1908. However, until the 1935 Italo-Ethiopian War, the Ethiopian government maintained its sovereignty over the monastery of Dabre Bizen

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and all its land, and also over Gult, an extensive territory deep inside the Christian highlands and stretching to the Red Sea coast. (ii) The Treaty of 26 October 1896 abolished the Wuchale Treaty, and established a new relationship that asserted Ethiopias complete independence as a sovereign state, and also sovereignty over the land that was occupied by Italy (Larebo, 2001). Regarding borders, the two countries agreed to maintain the status quo ante, namely the arrangements that existed prior to the Battle of Adwa (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1996; Levine, 1998). However, until a proper demarcation was made, the treaty acknowledged that the three rivers the Mareb, Belessa and Muna would be provisional landmarks to separate the frontiers between Ethiopia and the Italian colony. (iii) The Treaty of 10 July 1900 sanctioned the treaty of 1896. Other rivers were added to the three referred to earlier as a demarcation line. Both the treaties of 1896 and 1900 state unequivocally that the lands under Italys occupation belonged to Ethiopia, recognizing that they were given to Italy by the goodwill of the Ethiopian ruler. Based on this, the treaty imposes on Italy the duty not to cede or sell to any other power the territory given to it by Menelik II. Italy, by signing the treaty, committed itself to give the lands back to Ethiopia should it for any reason relinquish them. (iv) Two signicant additions to the Treaty of 1900, used by the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission (EEBC) as a guideline for determining the boundary in the central sector, were agreed upon in 1902 and 1908 (EEBC, 2002: 31). The Treaty of 15 May 1902 was termed a treaty by the Eritrean government during the present border dispute, and as an annex to the 1900 treaty by the EEBC (EEBC, 2001: 57) The Treaty of 16 May 1908 was referred to as such by the Eritrean government, and as the third of the pertinent colonial treaties by the EEBC (2002), although some scholars (Larebo, 2001) refer to the treaties of 1902 and 1908 as notes annexed to the Treaty of 10 July 1900. Be that as it may, the treaties of 1902 and 1908 aimed to modify the western and the eastern frontiers between the Italian colony of Eritrea and Ethiopia.
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(v) The Treaty of 1902 aimed to change the eastern boundary line of July 1900 by granting to Italian-occupied Eritrea the lands between the Gash and Setit rivers, including all the land inhabited by the Kunama. However, this treaty was never put into practice. Until the end of 1920, the territory was indisputably Ethiopian. Its annexation for Eritrea took place under the fascist governorship of Corrado Zolli. Zolli, taking advantage of the political unrest in Ethiopia, took this land by force, coercing the people and the governor of Kunama into submission to Italy. The annexation was vigorously contested by the Ethiopian government. The border of this area, as agreed upon by the Treaty of 1902, had, by 2001, not yet been demarcated by experts from the governments of either Ethiopia or Eritrea. (vi) The Treaty of 16 May 1908 endeavored to establish the western border between the Italian colony and Ethiopia at a distance of 60 km from the coast (Larebo, 2001). However, the agreement between the two governments to embark upon a cooperative initiative to lay down a frontier-line as quickly as possible, taking into account the nature and variation of the terrain, did not take place. Again Zolli, in 1928 and 1929, cut off large amounts of land from the Tigrai region, adding it to Eritrea. As a result, the two separate Italian territories were connected and became a unit for the rst time. Zollis policy depended on the defunct 1885 Berlin Act, which European colonial powers had devised as an instrument to claim parts of the African continent for themselves. The Act stipulated that any territorial treaty with an African leader would give the European power claims of sovereignty which could only become effective if followed by occupation of the territory. For Zolli, the treaties of 1902 and 1908 met these criteria, and the forcibly annexed territories fell within the lines agreed by these treaties. Yet he was aware that the treaties served only as a subject of discussion until the borders, agreed to only on paper, were accepted, demarcated by experts, and ratied by the two signatory powers. Zollis conduct angered the Ethiopian government (Larebo, 2001). However, the then Negus Ras Teferi (later to become the Negus Negest, Emperor Haile Selassie) was beguiled by Italys cunning diplomacy and concluded a 20-year treaty of peace and friendship with his northern colonial neighbor in 1928. In spite of this, Italy aimed at intensifying its

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policy of keeping Ethiopian authorities unaware of, and insensitive to, its subversive maneuvers. The Italians believed that this policy would assist them by eventually resulting in the disintegration of the Ethiopian empire, thus clearing the way for Italys intervention and nal conquest. These events led the Ethiopian public and ruling ofcials to deliver a harsh verdict on the Negus: Here is the fruit of your friendship with Italy; you have sold out our land (Larebo, 2001). Tigrean ofcials such as Ras Seyoum, whose land was seized and who also bore the main brunt of Italys imperial designs, were the most outspoken critics. Ras Teferi appeared to have learnt his lesson. His initial enthusiasm for Italys half-hearted attempt to construct the AssabDassie highway as the Treaty of Friendship required dissolved, and the treaty remained a useless piece of paper. Ras Teferi came to understand that the treaty did not aim to guarantee Ethiopias national security against Italian aggression, as he initially believed, but to trick the empire into becoming an Italian protectorate, by facilitating Italian commercial penetration deep into the country. Therefore, it can be demonstrated that the Ethiopian government had never accepted the boundaries forcibly established by Italy at the end of the 1920s, the high period of Fascist Italys revived imperial ambition against Ethiopia (CIA, 2006). Even though it was overwhelmed by more pressing domestic problems, many of them caused by Italys policy of destabilization, Ethiopia launched a strong protest. Although Zolli acted on the advice of ofcials in Rome, his moves angered even the Italian minister in Addis Ababa. Zolli ignored the ministers scathing attack and the Ethiopian governments protest. His relentless pursuit of Italys expansionism diminished only when the Irob the people inhabiting the areas of present day Zalambesa and its environs exhibited strong resistance, and refused to give up their Ethiopian nationality, remaining under Ethiopian administration. In contrast, Zolli met little resistance in the regions inhabited mainly by the Kunama and Afar. Unlike the Irob, who are sedentary, these two peoples are transhumant and pastoralist, so that it took time before the effects of Zollis policies had an impact on them. Ultimately, one has to conclude that the territory seized by Italy remained part of the Italian colony because the Ethiopian government, trapped by the Italian policy of subversion that culminated in the 1935 Italo-Ethiopian War, lacked the time and resources to deal with the issues
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involved. Italy evaded the Ethiopian governments persistent requests to demarcate its common borders, either with Eritrea or Somalia. In fact, the Italian authorities claimed that boundary demarcation would not be in Italys interests, because it would prevent it from carrying out its nal objective for Ethiopia. Italys aggression against Ethiopia in 1935 unalterably broke the ties between the countries (Larebo, 2001). After ve years of Ethiopian guerrilla warfare, and with the help of Britain, Italy was again defeated. As a result, it lost all its colonial possessions in Africa and Europe. Italys treaties with Ethiopia became null and void. This had been the case also with the treaties that Italy concluded with other powers. In fact, at the end of the World War II and with the 1947 treaty, Italy was forced by the victorious powers to relinquish any claim over her former colonies that she had lost as a result of her war against the allied forces. Although it is difcult to gauge Ethiopian public and political opinion as a whole, the view that Ethiopia had a right to claim back territory relinquished to or taken by Italy seems to have struck a deeply responsive chord in the country. One reaction that was posted to the Internet in 1998, the year that the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea took on renewed intensity, claimed that the Eritrean government was trying to force the Ethiopian government to accept the Mussolini map from 1934 (EritreaEthiopia Conict Webpage, 1998). The treaties entered into in the period from 1897 to 1906 were not of much use to Eritrea, as they did not specify the precise border locations, except where natural features such as rivers existed (The Economist, 11 May 1999). Italy had not even mapped Eritrea at the time. However, the Italian map of 1934, the year during which Ethiopia and Italy were conducting fruitless negotiations at the League of Nations in an attempt to resolve border disputes, is, in the words of an Ethiopian commentator, totally unacceptable to Ethiopia. In 1934, Italy was a hostile nation preparing to invade Ethiopia. Ethiopia has never accepted this fascist-created map and it never will. Not in 1934 and denitely not in 1998 (EritreaEthiopia Conict Webpage, 1998). According to the viewpoint expressed on the EritreaEthiopia Conict Webpage in 1998: (i) all treaties between Ethiopia and Eritrea were rendered null and void by Mussolinis invasion of Ethiopia in 1935;

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(ii) in any case, the EritreaEthiopia border was in dispute, and being mediated at the League of Nations prior to the Italian invasion of 1935; (iii) the Eritrean parliament voted in 1962 for unification with Ethiopia, and although this decision was influenced by the Ethiopian government, this inuence was far less coercive than Italys war offensives, which led to the creation of Eritrea in the rst place; (iv) few foreign governments or international organizations had disputed that Eritrea, in terms of international law, was an integral part of Ethiopia until 1993; (v) Ethiopia rearranged Eritreas borders in 1987 which implies that Eritrea is obliged to have Ethiopian agreement for any changes to these borders; (vi) using commonly available maps, Badme and the Yirga triangle lie within Ethiopia; and (vii) the Eritrean government has argued that the colonial border is the only legitimate border. Should this be the case, and the Eritrean governments claim that Eritrea was a colony of Ethiopia be accepted, the colonial border would be that dened by the last colonial power Ethiopia (Eritrea Ethiopia Conict Webpage, 1998). The following were among the conclusions reached by the author of the posting: (i) The Eritrean people need to inform themselves on the history of Ethiopia and Eritrea, and should not unquestioningly follow the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF) leadership. (ii) The Ethiopian government should stop sending mixed signals to Eritrea. Fraudulent activities by the EPLF government had been tolerated for too long and this has encouraged aggressive behaviour. The Ethiopian government should insist that all the Eritrean governments claimed territories be subject to discussion. This would include the Afar coastline and the Kunama-inhabited western lowlands between the Mereb and Tekeze rivers. (iii) It should be recognized that the dispute between the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments does not involve just a small patch
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of rocky land. Fundamental, underlying questions regarding Eritreas history and legal status are emerging (EritreaEthiopia Conict Webpage, 1998). This is one side of the argument. From the political point of view, however, it is not always plausible to begin with historical interpretations and arrive at a certain political conclusion. Then too, some sweeping generalizations are being made, such as Eritrea had always been part of Ethiopia (one of the Ethiopian arguments), or Eritrea had never been part of Ethiopia (an argument of the EPLF and the like). It is by no means easy to deconstruct these constructions, as they are supported by hordes of Western historians who command the capacity to publish their own version of the issue. It is important to realize that the background to the Ethio-Eritrean conict cannot be analyzed through that lens. The relationship between Ethiopia and Eritrea was and still is unique in a number of ways. The most important of these is the manner in which Eritrea was carved out of Ethiopia and fused with the lowlands of the east and west to form the Italian colony. The highland section had been part of Ethiopia, while the lowlands had not. Second, the defeat of Italy left the question of Eritreas independence to be decided by the UN. Third, under the British administration, Eritrea was exposed to a modern sense of politics through its various political parties, a situation totally different from Ethiopia, where autocracy prevailed. Any meaningful analysis of the Ethio-Eritrea conict cannot ignore these unique features of the relationship. In addition to the sense of betrayal by Menelik II that part of the highland population felt, these three issues inuenced the mentality of the Eritrean populace, and largely determined the nature of the transformation of Eritrean society. The Tigrai Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF) The aforementioned arguments presented above indicate the historical basis for Ethiopias claims. The fact of the matter is that the colonial era is over, is done and dusted. Clearly, a legitimacy crisis surrounds any determination of boundaries based upon colonial connivance and aggression, such as has been indicated regarding Italys designs upon Ethiopia (Trevaskis, 1960). Indeed, it appears that Italy was using Eritrea as a convenient stepping-stone to implement its expansionist designs on Ethiopia.

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However, the TPLF/Ethiopian governments claims are undermined by a number of aws. First, successive governments of Ethiopia have been accused of following a hidden agenda in their relations with Eritrea for more than 60 years. Thus, many generations of Ethiopians have assumed uncritically that Eritrea is historically part of Ethiopia; they have taken it for granted that Eritrea is by nature and logic part of Ethiopia (Tesfai, n.d.). In terms of this logic, a common history, religion and culture is invoked, while Eritrea is seen as Ethiopias natural outlet to the sea. A second and related assumption is that Eritrea is economically weak and unviable, and depends for its survival on Ethiopian resources (Tesfai, n.d.). This thinking also depicts Eritrea as an ethnically, linguistically and regionally divided Italian creation that cannot achieve statehood on its own. These two Ethiopian assumptions gained international prominence in the 1940s among leading powers such as the United States and Britain (Tesfai, n.d.). Eventually, the United Nations adopted them in 1947 by passing a resolution federating Eritrea with Ethiopia under the sovereignty of the Ethiopian crown. However, the people of Eritrea were not consulted in this decision, though the choice of the Eritrean populace on the disposal of Eritrea was not conclusive, as almost half opted for unity with Ethiopia, while the other half stood for independence. In 1991, when the EPLF led the Eritrean people to freedom from Ethiopian rule, Ethiopias premise that Eritrea was inseparably part of Ethiopia was, for many Eritreans, nally defeated. The economic assumption was also contradicted by the reality of the Eritrean situation. Eritrea had, as an Italian colony and a British occupied territory, a relatively better industrial and infrastructural base than Ethiopia (Tesfai, n.d.). Eritreans claimed that these were systematically dismantled by successive Ethiopian administrations, to the extent that during the 1950s and 1960s, Eritrea became a source of skilled labor, largely to Ethiopia, but also to Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Sudan. In 1991, when the TPLF assumed power in Ethiopia, Eritreans believed that the Ethiopian assumptions regarded by the Eritreans as fallacious would not be pursued (Tesfai, n.d.). Indeed, all the pronouncements of the TPLF leaders at the time appeared to be genuine. However, in an interview with the American writer Paul Henze on 31 March and 1 April 1990, Meles Zenawi, then head of the TPLF, made two notable points. First, he said that he did not expect Eritrean unity to endure once the Dergue was expelled from Eritrea. The main reason he furnished for this
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was that Eritrea was a religiously divided nation, and that he expected to see internal conict once the enemy had gone. Second, he also expressed his unqualied preference for an Eritrea linked to Ethiopia in a federal arrangement rather than an independent Eritrea. Meless thinking at that stage led Eritreans to conclude that the TPLF had itself never been free of the old fallacies of the Ethiopian ruling classes (Tesfai, n.d.). For the Eritreans, the only exception was that the TPLF wanted Eritrea, not for Ethiopia as a whole, but, according to Meless own admission, to benet the interests of Tigrai. This hidden agenda has, according to the Eritrean government, continuously been in the forefront of Tigraian propaganda literature and the pronouncements of the TPLFs leaders. In fact, according to TPLF propaganda, the issue is no longer their allegation that Eritrea occupied Ethiopian territory, by force, at Badme. It is, rather, Eritreas internal political and economic problems, which were presumably to be corrected by any war waged by the TPLF against Eritrea. In short, the re-occupation of Eritrea or parts of it appears to be, from the Eritrean point of view, the real reason for the present conict. Seen from this perspective, the border dispute is the direct result of the TPLFs expansionist policies and disposition. The Ethiopian government also appears to have erred in not laying claim to an outlet to the sea in its submissions to the EEBC. This made it vulnerable to the accusation that it had a hidden agenda, which it intended to put into practice through making war on Eritrea. This line of reasoning nds some support in the views of Abbink (2003). He states that the Ethiopian government contested the EEBC decision on 13 May 2002, but that this was too late to inuence the course of events. It no longer had military positions to support its border claims, and had made insufcient claims during the negotiations. It is remarkable that no claim whatsoever was submitted to the EEBC for an outlet to the sea (at Assab). The border ruling also reveals that the Ethiopian government relinquished contested areas, such as Tsorona and Fort Cadorna, without any counterclaim. Even the Ethiopian governments claim to Badme came very late. Ethiopian government policy in this regard appears to have been guided by the outdated TPLF ideological view; Eritrean independence was to a large extent being put into practice within borders that were agreed upon in the 1970s, in covert agreements between EPLF and TPLF (Abbink, 2003). This appears to indicate that in 2003 some form of underlying political alliance still existed between the regimes in Addis Ababa and Asmara, despite the insults and bloodshed.

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Eritrean Contentions1 Supporters of unication between Ethiopia and Eritrea emphasize the interlinked history of these two countries. While this is true in general, in particular under the highland kingdom of Axum, Eritrean critics contend that the linked history was manifested through Ethiopian rulers exercising authority over Eritrean land and making periodic incursions into it to round up slaves, plunder and rape (HighBeam Encyclopedia, 2005). In this view, the 64 years of Italian occupation of Eritrea irreversibly separated Eritreans from Ethiopians. Some of these critics have claimed that Eritrea made some progress in terms of development under the Italians, and had begun to develop a collective consciousness of being a people with a past and a common destiny. However, this is very controversial. Other analysts contend that it was not development that took place under the Italians. They claim that the Italians consolidated their grip and laid down infrastructure, establishing a few factories and modern production centers commensurate with the immediate needs of Italian colonization schemes for the entire region. They did not, in fact, build many industries, and the EPLFs assertion that Eritrea had a developed industrial base is exaggerated. It is indeed much better than that of Ethiopia, but compared to other European colonies such as Kenya, what the Italians did in these terms did not amount to much. Also, the Italians record on education was among the worst, akin to that of the Belgians. The other major point is the origin of Eritrean nationalism. There are those, such as Mesn Araya and Melakou Tegegn, who contend that there was no Eritrean nationalism as such. Even after 1991, the bulk of highland Eritreas population still believed that they were Ethiopians. At the same time, the fact that a feeling of oneness in Eritrea developed as a result of Italian colonization cannot be denied (HighBeam Encyclopedia, 2005). In addition, these critics claim that Eritrea exists not only by virtue of Italian creation, but also by an explicit Ethiopian government renunciation. The modern concept of an Eritrean national identity grew its most genuine and obdurate roots during 30 years of Ethiopian occupation, when many cruelties were perpetrated by the Ethiopian government in Eritrea after it was forcibly annexed by emperor Haile Selassie in 1962. Ethiopian rule was interpreted by these critics as a continuation of colonialism, and speeded up the formation of Eritrean national consciousness. The
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EPLF, it is claimed, could not have survived without a broad base of support among the population, or without a deep-seated resentment against Ethiopian government domination. The concept of a Greater Ethiopia has always been a powerful source of pride and longing for Ethiopian rulers. However, the recent Ethiopian expansion resulted in a deeply divided and demoralized state, many ethnic liberation movements and internal political tensions. Power resides with the Amhara and Tigrai communities, which are still attempting to establish dominance over the entire territory of the state. Tigrai In 1976, the TPLF dened in its infamous Manifesto what land it saw as Tigraian, and what the ultimate aims of the TPLF were. The following are among the signicant points made in the manifesto: (i) A Tigraian was defined as any person who speaks the language of Tigrinya, including those who live outside Tigrai, namely the Kunama, the Saho, the Afar and the Taltal, the Agau and the Welkait, the Tegede and the Tselemt, among others. (ii) The geographic boundaries of Tigrai stretch to the borders of Sudan, including the lands of Humera and Welkait, from the region of Begemdir in Ethiopia; the land dened by Alewuha, which extends to the regions of Wollo, and including Alamata, Ashengie, and Kobo; and, nally, the lands of Eritrean Kunama, which include Badme, the Saho (close to the conict area of Zalambessa), and Afar lands, including Assab. (iii) The ultimate aim of the TPLF was to secede from Ethiopia as an independent Republic of Greater Tigrai by liberating the land and peoples of Tigrai. Many Tigraian nationalists in modern times continue to assert their ethnic separateness, as they are proud of the fact that Aksum, the foundation of the Ethiopian empire, is situated in Tigrai. Also, they are suspicious of the historic dominance of the Amhara. Therefore, many analysts argue that the tenor of the TPLF manifesto is similar to that of the German manifesto on the greater German empire just before World War II. The TPLF manifesto assumes that border changes are justied to incorporate

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its people into an enlarged state. This manifesto forms the basis of the so-called TPLF hidden agenda. Critics charge that part of the TPLF manifesto has already been put into practice. According to van der Splinter (1998), its implementation: (i) started in 1992, when Ethiopia was divided into seven ethnic regions, with Tigraian territory expanding by 60 percent through acquisition of fertile land from Begemidir and Wollo; (ii) continued with the 1994 amendment of the Ethiopian constitution, allowing any ethnic region to secede should it desire selfdetermination; and (iii) continued further with the 1996 withdrawal from Ethiopia at the request of the TPLF-dominated government of Eritrean troops, which were supporting TPLF forces in stabilizing the Ethiopian federation. This resulted in the 1998 occupation, both administrative and by force (although the Border Commission has already ruled that the Eritrean government was the aggressor), of Eritrean territory, and the deportation of 75,000 Eritreans, mainly from Tigrai and Addis Ababa. Assab The Red Sea port of Assab played a signicant role in the negotiations between the governments of Italy, Eritrea and Ethiopia. Emperor Menelik II did not demand access to the port. He did not want to be dependent on Italy, and preferred to enter into a treaty with France that stipulated that a railway was to be built from the port of Djibouti in French Somalia to Addis Ababa. By 1917 the trains were running. The railway was sufcient for the modest Ethiopian imports and exports. However, a new treaty in 1928 between emperor Haile Selassie, Italy, and Ethiopia provided Ethiopia with a free zone in the port of Assab. A road was to be built between Assab and Dessie in Ethiopia. Despite this, Ethiopia was left in a vulnerable position regarding access to the Red Sea, a busy shipping lane of strategic importance. Any break in the transport system between Ethiopia and Djibouti, or between Ethiopia and Eritrea, could have serious consequences for Ethiopian trade. In fact, when the railway to Djibouti was blown up at a number of places during the war with Somalia, Assab became Ethiopias most signicant point of
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access to the Red Sea. Moreover, Ethiopian rebels kept sabotaging this railway. This in effect subjected Ethiopia to the goodwill of the Eritrean government for imports and exports that could not reach or leave Ethiopia by other means. Indeed, in 1991, after the ousting of Mengistu, the Eritrean government gained almost exclusive control over Ethiopias access to the Red Sea. However, during the negotiations between the Eritrean and Ethiopian governments, Eritrea guaranteed that Ethiopia could use the port of Assab on the same terms as Eritrea itself. This had some logic, since Assab is 750 km from Asmara and the core regions of Eritrea, which are served by the port of Massawa. At the time, Ethiopia was reconstructing the railway to Djibouti with French help. Furthermore, in 1998, trade between the two countries had ceased as a result of the conict. However, Eritreans claimed that Ethiopia had not suffered shortages or signicant price rises as a result of using ports other than Assab for its goods. The Eritrean argument on this issue is that Part X of the Law of the Sea Convention stipulates the terms and conditions by which landlocked states and their coastal neighbors were to operate (USAfrica, 2003). Essentially, landlocked states such as Ethiopia have rights of access, although the coastal state does not have to surrender part of its sovereign territory. However, the Ethiopian government claims that it is inequitable for Eritrea to retain two ports while the larger and more densely populated Ethiopia remains landlocked. Eritrean critics suspect that the Ethiopian government intends to take Assab by force, alleging that a further reason for this is that Ethiopians believe the Afar people living in this area should be reunited with the Afar people living in Ethiopia. This argument is fraught with difculty, as it would entail more than claiming parts of Eritrea, also implying Ethiopian claims on parts of the former French colony of Djibouti. Such claims, if put into practice, would violate the provisions of the 1964 Organization of African Unity (OAU) Summit in Cairo. Tigraian Ethiopian interests, in view of the alleged double standards adhered to by the Ethiopian government, appear to play a part in the apparently deadlocked negotiations on Assab. Some Eritrean critics of Ethiopia have concluded that the real reason for Ethiopian efforts to control Assab may be the fact that the only asset the now landlocked Tigrai needs to declare independence is a port.

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Badme2 Much of the present conict centers on the hamlet of Badme, which has assumed great symbolic signicance for both countries. Badme was not referred to in the EEBC report, and its precise location is not indicated by either side. Therefore, much confusion remains regarding the country responsible for Badme. Although it was still being administered by the Ethiopian government in 2003, both countries claim it. Badme is a hamlet in the land of the Kunama, the ancient indigenous people in the area. Its name is derived from the Badumma plains, a piece of land used largely as pasture by the Kunama, but also more recently as a cultivation area. The village itself was founded in the 1950s under the auspices of the then administrator of the Tigrai province, Ras Seyoum Mengesha. As Eritrea was then part of Ethiopia, there were no border disputes regarding Badme village. Over the years, Eritrean farmers and traders of the same language group as the local people (Tigrinya) also came to settle in Badme. Early in 2003, Ethiopia and Eritrea still awaited the nal determination and demarcation of their international border, although the Ethiopian government initially thought Badme had been awarded to them. According to UN sources, the actual demarcation was to begin in May 2003. It was anticipated with trepidation by both sides. In particular, the fate of Badme was eagerly awaited. It was here that the war of 19982000 began when, on 6 May 1998, there was an armed incident between Eritrean and Ethiopian militia, followed by a violent incursion on 12 May 1998 by Eritrean troops to avenge the death of some of their soldiers, including a high-ranking ofcer. The Eritreans displaced the Ethiopian administration and town militia, and occupied the village. One of the most intense and bloody wars in Africa in recent history ensued. It ended in military defeat for Eritrea in MayJune 2000. A peace agreement was signed in December 2000 (the Algiers agreement), and a 4,200-member UN peacekeeping force, the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE), installed. This was followed in early 2001 by the EEBC, appointed and mandated by both Ethiopia and Eritrea, and working under the auspices of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) at The Hague. The EEBC published its verdict on 13 April 2002. The two contestants had previously undertaken to be bound by this decision. Predictably,

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both countries claimed the ruling as a victory. The rst differences of opinion were already evident a few days after the EEBC decision, and have continued ever since. The location of Badme was the bone of contention. Claiming that the village had always belonged to his country, Issayas Afeworqi, the president of Eritrea, had said after its conquest that giving it up would be like saying that the sun would set in the east. For the Ethiopian government, it was a humiliation that a place administered by them since its founding was usurped by Eritrea by force. In this manner, Badme became highly symbolic, and whoever received it under the EEBC decision would be perceived as the ultimate victor of the war or having the right cause to start with. The symbolic signicance of Badme may be the reason why the EEBC, in a rather childish move (Abbink, 2003), excluded any reference to the location of the village in its report. It is mentioned only once, in passing (EEBC, 2002: 84). The commission even refrained from indicating Badme in its maps. Since then, there has been a propaganda battle in which both the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments have claimed Badme, thus also claiming to be the moral victor in the war. Confusion regarding the location of the village may be the key to the solution. Most maps indicate a place called Yirga, which appears to coincide with the location of Badme. Yirgas geographic location is 143760 N latitude, 37550 E longitude. An Agence France Presse reporter noted in a news dispatch on 12 July 1999 that local people spoke of Badme when they meant the village named Yirga (The Reporter, 2001). In ofcial Ethiopian documents, however, Badme is the name of a place in the woreda (or district) of Tahtay-Adiabo. In the Ethiopian census report of 1994, there is no mention of a town called Yirga, which conrms the notion that Badme and Yirga are the same place. This would answer the question of where exactly Badme is because under all projections and treaty lines, Yirga, at the co-ordinates referred to, is in Ethiopian territory, 20 km north of the town of Shiraro, on the road to Eritrea. Also, on the rst map of the border area issued by the UN, in November 2000 (Map No. 3790, Rev. 4, subsequently withdrawn), Yirga is shown to be in Ethiopian territory. Moreover, both Eritrea and Ethiopia have indicated that Badme can refer to either Badme village or the Badumma plain, which extends across both countries. In effect, therefore, Badme, in the wider sense, except for Yirga village, can legitimately be claimed to be in either country.

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Various sources have asserted that in global positioning system (GPS) calculations, Badme is in Eritrea. However, this contention cannot be sustained as long as there is confusion on YirgaBadme, and if the issue is not approached from both sides of the border. In the report of the Ethiopian nation-wide census of 1994, Badme town is listed as a location in Tigrai. Various UN documents also mention Badme as an Ethiopian place, and a recipient of food aid. The people of Badme voted in all Ethiopian elections after 1991. Furthermore, after 1993, the year of formal Eritrean independence, Eritrean currency (the Nafqa) was not used in Badme (HighBeam Encyclopedia, 2005). When Eritrean forces entered the Badme area on 12 May 1998, they were not welcomed as liberators and did not behave as such. The Eritrean military action was offensive, and changed into occupation, as it did in the contested Irob country further to the east. A number of civilian residents of the Badme area were killed and abducted. Before retreating, as the Ethiopian offensive of February 1999 gathered momentum, the Eritrean army destroyed parts of the town. The church, the primary schools, the hand pump and the clinics were demolished. Local residents claimed that there were attempts to take their land forcibly and give it to Eritreans. This indicated that Eritrea had no administrative or other foothold in Badme, and its claims to these were not recognized by local people as legitimate. Before 1991, the area surrounding Badme was sometimes disputed. In the 1970s, the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) operated there. This movement tried at times to establish administrative structures in the area, for example, in Badme itself, but was resisted by the TPLF, which saw the area as part of Tigrai. The TPLF was supported in this by the emerging EPLF, which was at war with the ELF. The TPLF had a eld base in the village of Bumbet, approximately 10km north of Badme. After the TPLF and the EPLF had combined in dispelling the ELF from the area in 1981, the EPLF came to take the position that Badme did belong to Eritrea after all. However, the two parties abandoned the issue of borders until they could establish governments. In international negotiations to end the war after May 1998, Eritrea was consistently asked to retreat from Badme to comply with the principle of international law that border disputes cannot be resolved by force. Therefore, before the conict Badme had not been administered by the Eritrean government. Badme and the triangle around it reverted to Ethiopian rule in February 1999, and remained as such in 2003. After the
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Ethiopian offensive of May 2000, which penetrated deep into Eritrean territory, many former Ethiopian residents gradually returned to the village, and started rebuilding their houses and de-mining their elds. This leads us to conclude with Abbink (2003), in his Internet article entitled Badme and the EthiopianEritrean Conict: Back to Square One? that:
It is amazing that such an apparently simple question as to where Badme lies is so controversial and so hidden in a smoke screen of propaganda and nationalist talk by the two protagonists. It only shows how deeply this unfortunate conict has blighted Ethio-Eritrean relations. It is also amazing how the two regimes were prepared to let the issues of disagreement blow up into a devastating war with huge human, economic, and environmental consequences.

Limitations of the EEBC Ruling on Badme Therefore, with hindsight it appears that the initial EEBC failure to rule specically on Badme was an oversight with grave implications. Another weakness in the ruling was that in spite of depending heavily on some aspects of the treaties of 1900, 1902 and 1908, in other respects it apparently arbitrarily ignored signicant aspects of the treaties, although it also highlighted their shortcomings. The ruling retained the old straight borderline between the Mareb and Setit rivers, from the junction of the MarebMai Ambesa in the north to the SetitTomsa junction in the south (slightly west of the Eritrean claim line) (Abbink, 2003). Although Tomsa was contested, the straight line is found on most existing maps of the Ethio-Eritrean border. However, the crucial point is that the treaties of 1900, 1902 and 1908 did not prescribe a straight line as the border: they only indicated it as the provisional line to be decided upon and demarcated later, presumably according to such issues as local circumstances, settlement patterns and land use. The demarcation never took place. In the meantime, for the local people, it was business as usual and they did not take notice of any border. Local administration became established. Not surprisingly, Ethiopian and Eritrean government submissions to the EEBC differed. They could not agree on the location of the line between the small Mai Ambesa and Maiteb rivers (Abbink, 2003). They agreed on the Mai AmbesaMareb point, but not on the southern point. The Eritrean government pretentiously claimed that the Maiten stream

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to the east was the Maiteb of the 1902 treaty. The Ethiopian government, equally pretentiously, claimed that the real Maiteb was located far to the west, approximately 20 km east of the town of Umm Hajer. The names were indeed on the old maps (there are at least three Maitebs or Meetebs), but both claims were incorrect. The available maps and the confusion regarding geographical names indicate that the question of deciding on the location of the real Maiteb is, to a certain degree, arbitrary. The extant documents did not help the commission here. This made it all the more important to consider local realities and feelings of belonging that have evolved in the local population over the past 50 years, especially since the end of Italian occupation in 1941 (Abbink, 2003). The EEBC mandate made this possible because the basis for its decisions was both the pertinent colonial treaties and applicable international law (EEBC, 2002: 1). International law would have enabled investigation of the local situation. However, the commission decided not to test local views (Abbink, 2003). It placed the southern border point at the SetitTomsa junction, east of the Maiteb. The commission in fact incomprehensibly took over the Tomsa point from the Italians, who had unilaterally claimed it in the 1930s. The decision argued that the Ethiopian government had not presented sufcient evidence on actual possession of Badme and environs (Abbink, 2003). However, the nal border ruling does not pinpoint Badme anywhere, neither in the text nor on the map. The new border therefore ignored the record of de facto Ethiopian administrative rule and possession of territories west of the straight line, which were indicated on the unofcial map of the region of Tigrai. However, on the basis of the aforementioned argument, Badme village is not included in the area accorded to Eritrea by the new border ruling. Only a part of the Badumma plains and the environs of Badme village went to Eritrea. The EEBC decision regarding Badme village, although it can be rectied if both sides are prepared to compromise, and especially if they accept the principle that the villagers have the right to decide their own future, still has serious consequences for the progress of the peace initiatives underway at present. According to the decision, Eritrea gained the advantage of having a questionable border internationally guaranteed and its shaky national identity reinforced (Abbink, 2003). Ethiopia, despite (arguably) having won the war and the propaganda battle, did not gain territorially nor did it gain the right to the free use of the port of Assab
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on the Red Sea. However, in 2003, there was little in EthiopianEritrean politics that demonstrated the will to be reasonable. Rather, there was entrenched personal enmity between the leading elites. Abbinks analysis forms a compelling argument in favor of Badme village being awarded to Ethiopia on the grounds of its physical location. At the same time, it illustrates another serious aw in the commissions ruling while the commission may have been uncertain about the precise location of Badme village, it should have solicited the views of the village population regarding which country they wanted as their home. More signicantly, the fact that the inhabitants of Badme village and its surroundings have a similar language and cultural background calls into question the principle of awarding the area to two different countries. This in turn, in view of the symbolic signicance of the village, raises the issue of the ultimate causes of the war and conict between Ethiopia and Eritrea. These still appear to be perplexing and senseless, but retain the potential to erupt into another armed struggle of great magnitude. A Fragile Peace At present, the fragile peace maintained by the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments since they signed the comprehensive agreement at Algiers in December 2000 is seriously endangered (ICG, 2005). A costly two-year war has now been followed by seven years of stalemate. Patience on both sides of the border is running out, and there are worrying signs that a renewed conict at a more serious level may have begun. Although neither side appears eager for war, the tensions cannot be dismissed as mere saber-rattling. Such dismissal could mean missing the last opportunity to preserve peace in the Horn of Africa. The stakes are extremely high. The last war cost many thousands of lives, disconnected the economic lifeline between the two countries, and ended in a manner that created unprecedented domestic challenges for both governments. Resumption would destabilize the entire Horn of Africa, feed ows of weapons to armed groups throughout the region, rekindle a proxy war in Somalia, and undermine the fragile peace process in southern and eastern Sudan. To recap, the crux of the present problem is a particular ruling of the independent boundary commission established to delimit and demarcate the contested border (ICG, 2005). Although both sides agreed in advance that its decision would be nal and binding, the ruling produced a

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stalemate that has brought them back to the verge of war. The primary issue is the small border settlement of Badme, where the 19982000 war started. Although, thinking that Badme had been awarded to Ethiopia, the Ethiopian government initially welcomed the boundary decision, it reversed its view after closer examination of the somewhat unclear documentation. In fact, Badme had contrary to the expectations of both sides been awarded to Eritrea. This was unacceptable to the Ethiopian government, which demanded that a new commission be initiated to rule on the contested border areas between Ethiopia and Eritrea (QuistArcton, 2003). In a letter to the UN Security Council, Meles called the decision by the EEBC to award Badme to Eritrea illegal, unjust and irresponsible saying that it was unimaginable for the Ethiopian people to accept it. Two years later, the Ethiopian government still wanted the decision revised, while tension had risen on the borders. However, by now the Ethiopian government had moved closer to accepting the decision, with foreign minister Seyoum Mesn repeating, in a letter to the Security Council on 31 October 2005, his governments earlier decision to accept the boundary in principle (ICG, 2005). However, he qualied this statement by adding: This does not mean going back to the drawing board, and it does not imply that we are introducing a precondition. In a letter on 9 December 2005, Seyoum emphasized the Ethiopian governments eagerness to enter a dialogue with a view to achieving a win-win outcome, which is consistent with sustainable peace (ICG, 2005). Signicantly, demarcation of the border has not progressed. Moreover, Badme is still under Ethiopian control, and Ethiopia has not been prepared to separate the issue of dialogue from that of demarcation. Seyoums letter of 31 October states that Ethiopia is committed to dialogue not only to achieve normalization and to address all issues that have been at the root of the crisis but also for the implementation of demarcation. By contrast, the Eritrean government claims that Ethiopia has violated the peace accords through its refusal, over successive years, to implement the border ruling, and its continuing occupation of sovereign Eritrean territory. The Eritrean government conceded defeat in a similar territorial dispute with Yemen in 1999, and does not have much patience with what it perceives as the Ethiopian governments delaying tactics. It demands full demarcation of the border before any dialogue. Frustrated, the Eritrean government immediately targeted the UNMEE, which monitors the temporary security zone (TSZ), the long
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strip of demilitarized border territory which is almost all in Eritrea (ICG, 2005). The Eritrean government has come to resent the existence of the TSZ as an abrogation of its sovereignty. In October 2005, it banned the UNMEE helicopter ights, reducing the UNMEEs capacity to monitor the TSZ by more than half, and prompting countries contributing many troops to consider entirely withdrawing their forces. In early December, after a Security Council demand that it lift the ight ban, Eritrea increased the stakes by demanding that UNMEE staff from 18 Western countries leave. In the meantime, small units from both sides have inltrated the border area. This greatly increased the risks of a clash. Progress on any single issue in isolation from the others is unlikely (ICG, 2005). The Eritrean government rejects dialogue unless it perceives concrete progress on demarcation. Demarcation is almost impossible without Ethiopian government consent, which implies that a degree of exibility is needed from the Eritrean government on dialogue. Deescalation of political and military tensions is essential for an environment in which both demarcation and dialogue can proceed. This requires both countries to comply with Security Council Resolution 1640 (23 November 2005). Compliance would require the Ethiopian government to remove from the border seven divisions it deployed there in December 2004, while the Eritrean government would have to lift its restrictions on the UNMEE. Should these matters be addressed, the UN will have an opportunity to review the structure of the peacekeeping mission and, as the peace process moves into its implementation phase, resume the reduction of force levels it in fact began more than a year before. The Arc of Instability During the Cold War, Ethiopia and Eritrea occupied an important place in the geo-political considerations of both the West and East as they are located at an important waterway that links the Atlantic and Indian oceans via the Mediterranean Sea, as well as being gateways to the hinterland of central and East Africa. Whoever controls Ethiopia/Eritrea can either control or directly inuence events in Africa and the Middle East. This Western consideration continued in the postCold War situation where the US desperately sought allies for its war on terrorism. The United States viewed the Horn of Africa as the westernmost part of an arc of instability with regard to Islamic militancy. The countrys interest in the arc of instability is to contain and suppress Islamist movements in order

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to secure strategic resources and prevent further attacks on the United States (Weinstein, 2005). Weinstein adds that the United States aims to cultivate stable and friendly relations with governments in the area that will serve broader United States aims in its competition with the power centers of China, Russia and India. Moreover, the US is committed to preserve global military supremacy and is ready to ght pre-emptive wars against states that threatened its vital interests by harboring terrorists or developing weapons of mass destruction (Weinstein, 2005). Whatever the US views may be, political instability is in the main caused by internal factors. The principal factor that causes such instability is lack of freedom and space. This lack can be expressed in many forms: outright denial of space and prevalence of unfreedom for society as a whole; suppression of selective rights such as for ethnic groups; deceptive posturing aimed at appearing liberal and open, specically targeting donors; and so on. In countries such as those of the Horn, freedom and democracy play a crucial role in the struggle against poverty and underdevelopment (CIA 2006). Poverty and lack of freedom make a perfect breeding ground for dissent and political instability. In this regard, both the Eritrean and the Ethiopian governments are prime examples of repressive regimes. This constitutes an extremely serious problem for both countries, as sidelining the civic sectors will eventually affect peace efforts. The process of peace requires the participation of the civic sectors of both countries. Suppressing space as an internal factor has a negative effect on peace efforts. The internal situation, especially in Ethiopia, appears to have reached a critical stage. An opposition coalition consisting of four parties won a substantial number of seats in the most recent elections, but boycotted the parliament. Meles, for his part, has taken strong action against them. Conclusion The claims and counter-claims over the border, as has been shown, had their origins in the days of the colonization of Eritrea by Italy. Although the treaties of 1900, 1902 and 1908 between Italy and Ethiopia did little to advance Eritreas claims to independence, as they did not precisely determine the boundaries between Eritrea and Ethiopia, Italy made use of them to embark on annexing land previously belonging to Ethiopia. At the same time, Ethiopians, inuenced by successive rulers, had long cherished the ideal of a greater Ethiopia that included Eritrea. This
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culminated in the annexation of Eritrea in 1962 by Haile Selassie, the Ethiopian emperor, in the same year that the Eritrean parliament voted for union with Ethiopia, an event highly contested by Eritreans. Eritrea became de facto independent in 1991 when the Dergue, rulers of Ethiopia, were defeated by forces from both Eritrea and Ethiopia, while it became de jure independent on 24 May 1993. With this, Ethiopia became an entirely landlocked country as its entire coastline along the Red Sea was lost. The latest conict between Ethiopia and Eritrea appears to have a strong symbolic content, more indicative of underlying sources of conict than the ostensible conict over the border between the two countries. Eritrean border claims rest largely upon the maps drawn up by Italy in 1934. The colonial era has ended. There is a strong historical basis for Ethiopias claims to parts of Eritrea. Clearly, a legitimacy crisis surrounds any determination of boundaries based upon colonial connivance and aggression. In 1934, Italy was a nation hostile to Ethiopia and had designs on its land. This has led the Ethiopian government to contend that it would never accept the borders drawn up by the colonial power, Italy. Moreover, the Ethiopian government can argue that all treaties between Ethiopia and Italy were made null and void by Italys invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. This implies that: (i) although the present borders of many African countries correspond to those drawn by colonial powers, in the case of EthioEritrea, an internal African solution, agreed to by both Ethiopia and Eritrea, is required; and (ii) in principle, both Eritrea and Ethiopia will have to be prepared to relinquish claims to disputed areas that should be subject to a negotiated settlement. Indeed, there is an impasse now, as the Ethiopian government has rejected the boundary commissions ruling, and the Eritrean government is threatening to take unilateral action as the international community (the UN in this case) is not doing anything about the intransigence of the Ethiopian government. In the meantime, the accession to power of the Islamic Courts Union in Somalia has raised concern in the West, and resulted in the direct involvement of both the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments in Somalias internal affairs. The government in Addis Ababa

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has vowed to advance the interests of the US by directly intervening in Somalia through troop deployment, aimed at beeng up the forces of the beleaguered transitional government of Abdullahi Yusuf, which was chased away by the Islamic Courts Union. The Eritrean government, for its part, is beeng up the Islamic Courts Union with arms supplies. Clearly, the two governments are now bogged down in a proxy war inside Somalia that could sap their meager resources. And the matter does not seem to end there. The Eritrean government seems to calculate that while Ethiopian troops are engaged in Somalia, it can either advance to recapture the territories that it claims from Ethiopia, or feint, so as to divert the attention of the Ethiopian military from Somalia. In either case, a border war could be triggered by any wrong move from either side, as UNs former secretary-general Ko Annan has warned. What is tragic about the war between the two governments is the fact that the resources allocated for the war effort could have been used for poverty reduction and development work in both Eritrea and Ethiopia. The peoples of both countries also have their special interest in peace. Eritrea has not known peace since 1941 when it emerged from Italian colonization and was made a British mandate as a UN protectorate when political divisions gave way to conict. When Eritrea nally shook off direct rule from Addis Ababa in 1991, its people thought that peace had nally arrived. Ethiopians, on the other hand, have not enjoyed peace since the Zemene Mesant (the Era of the Princes), that is, for over 300 years. Poverty and underdevelopment in both countries have a great deal to do with the prevalence of incessant conict, a situation that has made the emergence of civil societies even more difcult. A lasting solution to the Ethio-Eritrean crisis can come only when the states monopoly of the conict agenda gives way to the involvement of civil society from both countries in conict resolution, dialogue and the fostering of solidarity. The interest of civil society in both countries is peace and development, and it is much simpler for civil societies to come to terms than it is for governments to do so. The reality within the Diaspora of both peoples amply testies to the fact that war and conict are rmly on the agenda of both governments. The emergence of civil society in both countries is taking longer because of the prevalence of unfreedom. It is only democracy and freedom from within that can eventually bring peace and mutual friendship between the two countries.

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NOTES
1. This introduction and the following sub-sections on Tigrai and Assab draw on van der Splinter (1998). 2. This sub-section draws on Abbink (2003).

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Quist-Arcton, O. (2003) Meles Defends Demand for New Ruling on Border with Eritrea. AllAfrica.com, 30 September. [Accessed 28 December 2005 (http://allafrica.com/stories/ 200309300001.html).] Tesfai, A. (n.d.) The Cause of the Eritrean-Ethiopian Border Conict, part 1. [Accessed 1 November 2005 (http://dehai.org/conict/home.htm?analysis. htm).] The Economist (1999) Africas Forgotten War: Addis Ababa and Asmara, 11 May. [Accessed 1 November 2005 (http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/ issues/ethi4.htm).] The Reporter (2001) 4(38), October. Trevaskis, K. (1960) Eritrea: A Colony in Transition. London: Oxford University Press. US-Africa.org (2003) Eritrea, USAfrica Research Information. [Accessed 6 February 2006 (http://us-africa.tripod.com/eritrea.html).] van der Splinter, H. (1998) Background to the Border Dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia, Le Monde Diplomatique, Translated by Lorna Dale. [Accessed 28 December 2005 (http://home.planet.nl/hans.mebrat/eritreaethiopia.htm).] Weinstein, M.A. (2005) Washingtons Long War and its Strategy in the Horn of Africa, Power and Interest News Report. [Accessed 23 February 2006 (http://www.pinr.com/report. php?ac=view_report&report_id=394&language_ id=1).]

Abebe Zegeye is Professor and Primedia chair of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the Graduate School, University of South Africa. He is coeditor of a number of academic journals, including African Identities and the Journal of African and Black Diaspora. He has published widely in academic journals and has a number of academic publications to his name, including the General Editorship of the Social Identity in South Africa book series. He was sole editor of one publication in this series: Social Identities in the New South Africa, After Apartheid, Volume One, (Kwela Press & South African History Online, 2001). Address: Graduate School, University of South Africa, PO Box 392 UNISA 0003. E-mail: zegeya@unisa.ac.za Melakou Tegegn has a PhD from the University of South Africa and is a recognized scholar on Ethiopian politics and the power politics of North Africa. He was involved in the Ethiopian Student Movement in the 1960s

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and 1970s and in the left wing revolutionary movement, the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Party, in the 1970s and 1980s. He has been working in the NGO sector for several years. He now runs a development consultancy rm, Development Pinnacle, in Kampala, Uganda. Address: Development Pinnacle Ltd. P.O. Box 72177, Kampala, Uganda. [email: melakoutegegn@yahoo.com]

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