Eritrea, Ethiopia: If Beyond Border Conflict, It’s Expansionism

Commentary

By Berhane M Tekeste

If the two-year devastating war (1998-200) between Eritrea and Ethiopia triggered by rivaling sovereignty claims over a small town of Badme located along their shared international border was “More Than a Border Conflict”, then it is a clear case of plain and simple expansionism. In this case, it is Ethiopia’s perennial territorial expansionism on grounds of manifest irredentism, for Ethiopia lives in a state of schizophrenic perpetual denial of the irreversible geopolitical realities precipitated by 19^th Century Colonialism that it is constantly trying to undo in its favor by military aggression.

Colonial Map of Africa

Indeed, that is exactly what Ethiopia was attempting to accomplish during the war with Eritrea under the pretext of a dispute over a border town. Ethiopia did not end the war after ‘recovering’ the town of Badme but proceeded to conquer a sizable chunk of undisputed sovereign Eritrean territories including the failed attempt to re-occupy the Eritrean port city of Assab, Ethiopia’s ultimate dream goal. Not only that. When it was time to settle the dispute via legal arbitration, Ethiopia did not limit its claim to the town of Badme but questioned Eritrea’s entire territorial sovereignty and demanded a re-determination of it all.

That is why the mandate of the Boundary Commission was not to decide and determine the geographic location of Badme, which it didn’t do, but to decide and determine (delimit & demarcate) the entire course of the international boundary between Eritrea and Ethiopia wherever the chips (in this case Badme) may fall. And Badme fell where it did within Eritrea’s sovereignty not as a result of a direct determination of the boundary commission but indirectly as a consequence of the delimitation decision.

The boundary commission did its job. The border dispute, be it over Badme or in terms of the entire shared border, which was all that they fought and then sought legal arbitration for, was ultimately and indisputably resolved now over 5 years ago and case referred to immediate physical implementation exactly as decided and determined. It didn’t happen yet simply because the Algiers Peace Agreement failed to clearly stipulate specific enforcement mechanism should either party, in this case Ethiopia, defy the ruling of the boundary commission. Case closed.

Not so fast, there is more than a border conflict says John Harbeson in his article cited above and pursues Ethiopia’s expansionist and irredentist claims (defeated militarily by his own admission in 1991 and legally in 2002) by political means. To that end, he starts with the brazen distortion of the irreversible geopolitical realities brought about by 19^th Century Colonialism.

The often-repeated term “Eritrea won its independence from Ethiopia” is a sorry attempt to imply Eritrea’s cession from Ethiopia, on the one hand, and to perpetuate Ethiopia’s expansionist and irredentist claims over Eritrea’s territorial and national sovereignty, on the other hand. The reality is, Eritrea re-claimed its rightful national independence in 1991 by the same means it was denied of at the end of Colonialism first by British military occupation (1941-1951), then UN imposed ‘federation’ with Abyssinia (1952-1962), and finally by Abyssinia’s willful dissolution of even the forced ‘federation’ and subsequent military occupation for 30 years (1961-1991).

Mr. Haberson’s audacious assertion that Eritrea’s independence brought about “the first and only boundary change in Africa since the end of colonial rule” is not only a blatant denial of to-date existing geopolitical realities precipitated by Colonialism [ColMapAfrica] but also a lazy attempt to legitimize and justify Ethiopia’s 30-year military occupation of Eritrea and declaring it to its 14^th province, just like one would legitimize and justify Iraq’s occupation of Quwait and declaring it to its province (1991) or Indonesia’s forcible occupation of East Timor (Portugese colonial territory) and declaring it to its 27^th provice (1976).

The fact is, Eritrea’s independence in 1991 did not bring about any boundary change but certainly uncovered and re-instated the undeniable reality of a colonial boundary that was forcibly obscured for 30 years for the first time because Ethiopia’s as well as Eritrea’s boundary at independence in 1991 is exactly the same boundary that existed at the beginning and end of Colonialism [ColMapAfrica].

By Mr. Haberson’s own admission, Eritrea’s 30-year armed struggle to re-claim national independence was in response to Ethiopia’s military occupation (forcible annexation) of Eritrea in 1961. Then turns around and asserts that between 1961-1991 “the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea was of no importance because it was an internal boundary separating one Ethiopian province from another.” Well, what were Eritreans fighting for then? Fighting for Eritrea without borders? That statement bears validity only if Mr. Haberson wants to justify and legitimize Ethiopia’s military occupation of Eritrea and serves Ethiopia’s expansionist and irredentist claims over Eritrea’s sovereignty. “But the border was created somewhat ambiguously as a result of Menelik's victory over Italian armies at Adwa in 1896.” There is no ambiguity about the course of Eritrea’s territorial sovereignty. Eritrea’s boundary was created, established and secured by legal colonial treaties of 1900, 1902, and 1908.

Then, Mr. Haberson indulges in the issue of ‘the right of nations to self-determination’ and draws utterly preposterous comparisons between Eritrea and the Somali and Oromo ethnic groups in Ethiopia. Good lord! Eritrea is neither an ethnic group nor a connotation for an ethnic group. Just like the word Ethiopia, Eritrea is the name of a country not ethnic group. As a matter of fact, Eritrea is a multi-ethnic country that has been militarily occupied by another multi-ethnic country, Ethiopia.

Moreover, Eritrea is not a subject of ‘the right of nations to self-determination’ but a clear case of a nation state, a colonial territory, under the blatant military occupation of Ethiopia. Hence, the issue is how to end the forcible occupation for it is not Eritrea trying to secede from Ethiopia but Ethiopia trying to perpetuate its military occupation of Eritrea.

Mr. Haberson argues that “In Ethiopian eyes” Eritrea’s “constitutional strategy offends legitimate ethnic aspirations to political autonomy. Some ethnic communities in each country overlap these borders.” That is certainly understandable because it kills Ethiopia’s irredentist claims. Other than that, ethnic communities overlapping borders of two, three, even four countries is the norm in post-colonial Africa where colonial borders were drawn arbitrarily not according to ethnic affiliation. For example, Somali ethnic communities overlap Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Djibouti borders.

“Thus, more is involved than a mere border. If there is an eventual demarcation of the border and Eritrean troops withdraw, the larger political and economic issues will remain.” So, concludes Mr. Haberson. Who cares about that? Ethiopia. Eritrea has not even intimated let alone raise those ‘large’ issues because bilateral relation between nations on all pertinent societal aspects are voluntary not a demand that is dictated by either nation's need. Mr. Haberson brought that up only to underline and as a warped but clear reference to Ethiopia’s persistent expansionist territorial and irredentist claims over Eritrea’s seaports. For what else in Eritrea would bear such a make-or-break significance to Ethiopia?