Eritrea-Whispers of a new war
By The Economist
ASMARA, Apr 21, 2005 — The United Nations peacekeepers in Ethiopia and Eritrea are worried. Tensions between the two countries are rising. Given that their border war of 1998-2000 cost 70,000 lives, this is ominous. Both the UN and the Eritrean government gave warning this month that the continuing stalemate could slide back into war.
When the two sides signed a peace deal in 2000, they agreed that an independent Boundary Commission would tell them where their border should be. But when the commission awarded the disputed two-goat town of Badme to Eritrea in 2002, Ethiopia rejected the ruling. A brittle truce has prevailed since then. Last November, Ethiopia finally said it accepted the commission’s decision “in principle”, but insisted on further talks. It then moved 50,000 troops closer to the border.
Eritrea may have international law on its side, but no global policeman seems inclined to enforce it. With 16 times the population, Ethiopia is commercially weightier. It is also more important strategically, since it shares a border with anarchic Somalia, which America frets might be a breeding ground for terrorists. Meanwhile, two permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia and China, are said to be selling arms to both sides.
Ethiopia’s leaders are expert schmoozers. The prime minister, Meles Zenawi, for example, is a friend of Britain’s Tony Blair. Eritrea’s president, Issaias Afwerki, is less welcome in the corridors of power, not least because he has turned Eritrea into a military dictatorship. Some 300,000 Eritreans are in uniform, out of a population of 4m. Other industries are deprived of manpower at a time when they are also throttled by drought and the closure of borders with Sudan and Ethiopia.
Eritrea sorely needs hard currency to buy food, oil and, of course, weapons. Its main source is remittances from Eritreans living abroad, which used to account for more than half of GDP. The government tries to grab a share of these remittances through a rigged exchange rate. This naturally deters the remitters from remitting. But the government thinks force is the answer even to economic problems. This month, it threatened to jail anyone caught using foreign currency without permission. Mr Afwerki’s courtiers try to justify the suppression of basic freedoms by arguing that their country is at an early stage of development. Without more freedom, however, it looks likely to stay there.