Let’s see Camp David Accords for Eritrea and Ethiopia
By Dr Abarru Gebeda*
May 21, 2006 — A bellicose Menachem Begin and an angry Anwar El Sadat made strange bedfellows in 1978, shocking the entire world. Both men were known to be mortal enemies, neither liking each other personally, nor agreeing on any reasonable issue. Both had personal grudges against one another, and both were egotistically uncompromising.
Begin was a gorilla fighter who fiercely fought the British occupation of Palestine; Sadat under Nasser was a rebel and a co-conspirator in staging the coup to overthrow the monarch, King Farouk I. And when President Carter convened the Camp David Summit in September of 1978, to resume the Middle Eastern peace process that had stalled throughout the 1976 presidential campaign in the United States, he had no idea what was in store for him. After receiving the Brookings Institution report, which stated that the United States’ direct engagement in the peace negotiation process was vital, Mr. Carter preferred to replace the previous, bilateral peace talks, most notably staged by the Kissinger Shuttle diplomacy after the Yom Kippur War, with a comprehensive, multilateral approach.
He was hopeful that he could break the stalemate that precluded these enemies from coming to the table to discuss the Middle East crisis, but he had no guarantee an accord was achievable. And for thirteen days at Camp David, the two enemies, both hating one another, were on non-speaking terms throughout the negotiation period with the untiring and unselfish President, shuttling from one camp to another, relaying messages. That was how determined Carter was at the time. Cyrus Vance, the Secretary of the State, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, the National Security Adviser, were actually babysitting the two camp occupants, not sure which one would explode first.
Accompanied by their morose but shrewd negotiating teams and with their respective interests in mind, both Sadat and Begin converged on Camp David for thirteen days (from September 5-17, 1978), hoping that the negotiations would end soon so that they could return home quickly. They came to Camp David to appease the United States; once they had done that with thirteen days of excruciating sacrifice, they had no desire for further debate.
Additionally, in the case of Sadat, the majority of the hard line Arabs wanted his skin if he were to make peace with Israel (and they fulfilled their vow on October 6, 1981), and Begin had the same problem with the right wing elements who would annihilate him, as they annihilated Yitzhak Rabin, on November 4, 1995.
However, Carter’s unwavering determination to bring about peace along with his coddling of the egos of these men played a large part in keeping them at Camp David for those unbearable thirteen days. He made it clear that he wouldn’t allow the two men to leave without reaching an agreement and he alluded to the disappointment of his nation if peace wasn’t achieved. On multiple occasions both the Egyptian and Israeli leaders wanted to scrap negotiations right there and then and leave, only to be lured back into the process by personal appeals from Carter. Holding one-on-one meetings with either Sadat or Begin tirelessly, he continued to prod. At last, to the amazement of the disbelieving world, the result was the Camp David Accords!
Ethiopia and Eritrea – you can equally say – Meles and Isaias – have the same traits today of the once fatal enemies Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat. An inevitable war is looming on the Horn of Africa unless the leaders of the world intervene now to avert this catastrophe before it’s too late. Historically, the Western leaders and the media have an egregious habit of crying foul only after the incident. An Ethiopian proverb has it: Jibb kehede behwala woosha yichohal, meaning, a guard dog makes noise (waking up its master) after the devastation caused by the hyena.
Too late!
The Rwanda genocide would have never materialized had the West acted quickly, as soon as the first news of ethnic cleansing occurred. The Darfur tragedy has the same tell-tale signs. And now the Eritrean-Ethiopian crisis, pregnant with hostility and bitterness, could make the Rwanda scenario pale in comparison, especially with the two highly armed nations at each other’s throat. The 1998 war between these nations caused the deaths of nearly 150,000 young men in less than six months of fighting, with thousands more displaced and unimaginable properties ruined. At the time, both nations saw their economies hit the ground with almost a million dollars a day allocated for the war. To this day Eritrea and Ethiopia, as a direct effect of the war expenditures, are economically depressed, unable to extricate themselves from this devastation. Both are still the poorest countries in the world; another war will only exacerbate the devastation, taking both Eritrea and Ethiopia down. And whoever wins or loses, for the United States and the European nations, this would be a major setback in their fight against Bin Laden and his followers, as the region would end up a breeding ground for terrorists. Somalia, a lawless land with war lords emerging overnight and mushrooming up throughout the Horn, would find new partners either with a totally disintegrated Ethiopia or Eritrea. Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Kenya would be targeted as Bin Laden and his henchmen could find a new haven in the deep, impenetrable ravines of the Ethiopian land. The battle waged by the West to contain the terrorists in the Afghanistan and Pakistan mountains would then stretch to the borders of Ethiopia, along the lines of the Red Sea.
Once it got there, we may as well consider that a lost battle for the West.
After Israel’s spectacular rescue of airline passengers from the Entebbe Airport in Uganda on July 4th, 1976, terrorism in Africa seemed to have lessened; however, the disintegration of Somalia revived the dormant beast. The bombing of American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were, therefore, not accidental. The US had been amply warned that these dormant destructive forces were breeding in the region, long before the bombings occurred.
Aside from the advent of terrorism, more devastation will follow. The loss of Ethiopia will result in the disintegration of the loosely-coalesced ethnic groups, each ready to wage war against the other. The Tigriyans, the Amharas, the Oromos, the Kambatas and the multiple other trigger-happy groups stand ready to kill each other once the unifying center is disarmed. Imagine a volatile scenario in America in which a group of hostile Hispanic, African-American, Korean and white people are kept in the same room without the supervision of a mediator to monitor their activities.
It is the same situation if Eritrea loses. The Christian Eritreans and the Muslim Eritreans, who have mitigated their combativeness toward each other, will be jubilant to return to the days of their old asperity. A nasty war begets a nasty, unseen outcome. Fundamental-ist Egyptians, sympathizing with Bin Laden, will flock to the south, to join the Eritrean Muslims, to harass the Saudis to the northeast. It is entirely possible, if left unresolved, that the Eritrean-Ethiopian conflict could ignite a wave of terrorism in the region and beyond, wreaking havoc with the American interests.
Again, if the Eritrean-Ethiopian conflict is left unchallenged by the United Nations and ignored by prominent world leaders, it could become Rwanda Two on a larger scale. Mr. Bush along with Mr. Blair, in the spirit of the Camp David Accords, could help to avert this war, by bringing the leaders of the two nations together for negotiations. Secretary Rice, just like her predecessors, Kissinger, Vance, Shultz and Baker, could shuttle from Africa to Washington to stop the possible deaths of millions of Ethiopians and Eritreans (unless the lives of black people do not count), by convincing the two protagonists to come to the negotiating table.
Of course, it would be easy for the media and the policy makers in Washington to scoff at the idea of the President of the United States mediating the affairs of these insignificant African nations. Mr. Isaias Afeworki and Mr. Meles Zenawi, dubbed as lightweights (compared to Sadat versus Begin), might be ignored, or even dismissed in Washington. Simply put the drama – Eritrea versus Ethiopia summit – might not be highly appealing for a prime time show. Myriad excuses will therefore be employed to avoid such a summit, by politicians and the media stating that the United States, even with its enormous powers and the best of intentions, doesn’t have the moral and intellectual resources to interpose on a sticky African problem.
Not true. The United States is still the most influential nation in the world (although it’s slowly acceding its soft powers to the Chinese), and can make a difference in this interplay. The Crisis in the Horn can be diffused if President Bush and Secretary Rice act now.
Remember: We didn’t believe Begin and Sadat would shake hands at the start of the Camp David Summit in 1978. Heck, we even thought that they might slug it out on Day Ten. But miracles happen. The signing of the Camp David Accords, thanks to the diligent efforts of a tenacious President Carter, was a miracle. Both Israel and Egypt left America as winners, with Egypt reaffirming 2.5 billion dollars yearly aid from the United States, with almost the same amount for Israel. Since the cessation of hostility on the part of the Eritreans and Ethiopians has a direct impact on the countries of the region susceptible to terrorism, including the more susceptible West, some monetary aid to these nations should be included as an incentive to end their hostilities. After all, the fomentation of peace and stability in the region will eventually mean less expense for the West, whose presence in the region is costing it millions of dollars every day. The American forces in Djibouti alone can be downsized if Ethiopia and Eritrea get their act together. If they don’t and the nations disintegrate, a double or quadruple number of Djibouti forces will be necessary to keep only the Red Sea area under control.
Mr. Bush: This could be your defining moment.
Let’s see Camp David Accords for Eritrea and Ethiopia!
Ethiopians and Eritreans should urge the United States, the European Nations, China, Russia and Japan to intervene immediately, and help President Bush to broker truce, before it is too late. Concerned citizens should also urge all media representatives to implore world leaders to stop this impending catastrophe, and Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia (Mr. Carter, Mr. Bob Geldof, Bono, Oprah and many more) to write letters to President Bush, to the Prime Minister of England, Mr. Blair, to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to Secretary Koffi Anan of the UN, and to other world leaders to act immediately.
Mr. Isaias Afeworki and Mr. Meles Zenawi should also be urged to halt the belligerent rhetoric coming from either side, and to work together to eliminate “war’ from their vocabularies. The only language for them should be peace.
* The Author is a retired psychologist based in California, USA. He can be reached at [email protected]