War clouds in the Horn of Africa

By Yohannes Woldemariam and Okbazghi Yohannes*

November 10, 2007 — As we collect our thoughts and reflect about what a future war could possibly mean to the peoples of Eritrea and Ethiopia, dark rumors of war are rampant in the African Horn; whether these rumors of war are an indication of an impending war or simply a function of public posturing is something that only the near future can tell. If it happens, a fresh war now could spell disaster of tragic proportions for both countries, but especially for Eritrea. It appears that Ethiopia is determined to take advantage of the desperate internal Eritrean conditions. The recent assessment of the International Crisis Group (ICJ) is apt here: “It would not be surprising if Addis Ababa believes an effort in the near future to stage a coup in Asmara and use force against an Eritrean government that has few friends would also be tolerated in Washington.” http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5136&l=1

This feverish Ethiopian preparation for aggression on Eritrea has a crucial international dimension, supplied by none other than the U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, Jendayi Frazer. She has actively been on a personal crusade to orchestrate an international demonization of the Eritrean leader and his regime as part of a coordinated effort to facilitate aggression. In Ms. Frazer’s vernacular, the Eritrean regime is a sponsor of transnational terrorism, and the answer must be “regime change”. Even Washington analysts have understood the metaphoric significance of her rehearsed statement as a dangerously opportunistic signal to Ethiopia’s Meles to begin his well calculated journey of aggression on Eritrea. Ken Menkhaus put it right when he opined: “recent statements made by the Assistant Sec of State for African Affairs, Jendayi Frazer, may have aggravated an already tense situation in the Horn. She made a statement about the government of Eritrea – in order to stay off the list of states sponsoring terrorism, one of the ways to do that would be regime change. By using that expression, that sent a message throughout the region that looked like the United States was implicitly accepting the possibility of an Ethiopian attack. And I hope that was not her intent, but that is how it was interpreted.” VOA NEWS.

We believe that this is the exact interpretation that Ms. Frazer wanted to communicate. If the rumors are credible, Meles’s understanding of the signals from Washington could be one of the factors that have precipitated the current crisis and the frantic preparation for war as well. As the Indian Ocean Newsletter recently reported in March 17, 2007:

According to a source close to the Ethiopian ministry of defence, the Ethiopian army has obtained satellite photos from the American intelligence services, showing the northern border of Ethiopia and providing useful information on Eritrean troop concentration. Moreover, the leaders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF, hard core of the EPRDF in power in Addis Ababa) are currently waging a propaganda campaign based on the slogan “repeat in the North the victorious military operation in Somalia”… [This] has caused diplomats on post in Addis Ababa to wonder whether the United States military cooperation with Ethiopia to prepare their joint offensive into Somalia could now be repeated in Eritrea. All the more so since the relations between the USA and the government of Asmara are at their lowest point…”

There should be no mistake that the reason for another war between Eritrea and Ethiopia is not that Eritrea has suddenly become a state sponsor of transnational terrorism, but the fact that Ethiopia desperately needs a pretext to create a material foundation for its de facto rejection of the Hague decision on the border issue. For the unfamiliar with the real reason for the Ethio-Eritrean conflict, it is important to recall that the two countries signed a binding agreement in Algiers in December 2000 pertaining to their disputed boundary. Two crucial provisions of the agreement are worth mentioning here. First, the two countries agreed in advance to accept the final decision of a boundary commission without any qualifications. Second, the United States, the European Union, the U.N. and the African Union all guaranteed the full implementation of any binding decision once made by the boundary commission. The commission gave its final and binding verdict in April 2002. While Eritrea accepted the final decision in full without reservation, Ethiopia rejected the decision outright because the town of Badme (the flash point of the 1998-2000 war) has been awarded to Eritrea. Even after over five years since the final verdict, Ethiopia has yet to accept the unqualified implementation of the decision and continues to block the U.N. technical committee from starting the task of boundary demarcation. When, frustrated by Ethiopia’s intransigence and obstructionist behavior, the boundary commission issued an ultimatum that it is going to create a virtual map using satellite imagery to show the boundary delineation between the two countries, the regime in Addis Abeba suddenly found itself in a quandary. The reason is that the virtual map gives de jure recognition to the territory awarded to Eritrea before Ethiopia could fulfill its expansionary objective, which includes the incorporation of Badme and possibly other Eritrean areas into Ethiopia.

In an ironic way, Meles and his cronies have proved to be diligent students of the Bush Administration’s postmodern preemption doctrine, regardless of whether it violates the conventional norms of international politics and the fundamental principles of international law or it offends a basic sense of justice. The difficulty for both the Bush Administration and Meles is the fact that both international law and the practice of international diplomacy support Eritrea’s position. Even John Bolton, former Bush appointee to the U.N. acknowledges the legal validity of the Eritrean case in his new book (Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations ) in these terms:

neither the Ethiopian nor the Eritrean government would win any popularity contests, and I certainly had no favorite, but it seemed to me that Eritrea had a point: Ethiopia had agreed on a mechanism to resolve the border dispute in 2000 and was now welching on the deal.

Likewise, David Shinn’s (former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia) words also echo Bolton’s observation: VOA October 26

Strictly from a legal point of view, the Ethiopians are on shakier ground for the simple reason that it was a binding arbitration to begin with and Ethiopia chose to conclude that there were problems… They did not accept the final agreement. Well, you cannot do that. Binding arbitration is binding arbitration.

As indicated above, if the crux of the conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia, and by extension between Eritrea and the Bush Administration, has been Ethiopia’s rejection of the final verdict of the international community, why have the guarantors of the Algiers agreement failed to help enforce the boundary commission’s decision? Even more important question, why has the Bush Administration decided to cast its lot with the Meles regime in the face of Meles’s open defiance of the international rule of law? Answers to these questions should untangle and illuminate the issues. An examination of Secretary Condoleezza Rice’s world outlook and her intellectual pedigree as well as that of her protégé, Ms. Frazer, can provide an important piece of the puzzle.

During the 2000 presidential campaigns, Ms. Rice wrote an essay in the Foreign Affairs magazine in her capacity as foreign policy adviser to then candidate Bush. Although the substance of her essay was a sheer regurgitation of an antiquated notion of international politics, a relic of the Cold War era, it was nonetheless revealing of her myopic understanding of contemporary issues as well as of the nature and texture of the incoming Administration’s foreign policy. The thrust of her proposition was that the United States was the sole hegemonic leader in global affairs, something that had to be continually demonstrated by America’s global power projection and the containment and domestication or eradication of “rogue” states. The means to this objective was power politics, pure and simple. According to this formula, America’s national interest could not and should not be hampered by international moral considerations and legal niceties; the U.S should always be prepared to trade strategic opportunism for proxy services provided by local or regional actors if that were what American military preponderance and global dominance required. Ms. Rice’s former professor affirms this brief presentation of her politics in his exquisitely revelatory essay on her intellectual pedigree. Professor Allan Gilbert tells us that Ms. Rice is an exceptionally gifted performer without “core values”, continually adjusting her performance to the tune of the symphony. As the good professor puts it: “she [Rice] is also a person without a core, who loses herself in her performance. National security was her responsibility. She failed in that responsibility because she was too busy perfecting her performance as a Bush team player when the Bush team, obsessed with wild fantasies of global domination, had lost touch with reality.” New African, June 1, 2004, Condi as you never knew her; Diaspora, Gilbert, Alan,: No. 430; Pg. 52

This type of personality meshes well with her advocacy for power politics as the spring water of American foreign diplomacy. States are either with the United States or against the United States; based on the services they provide to perpetuate American global dominance. States that complement American effort to project its power are to be rewarded and nurtured regardless of their internal particulars in terms of whether they are violators of international law or perpetrators of domestic crimes. Conversely, states that contradict American strategic interest are to be demonized as “rogue” or state sponsors of transnational terrorism. It is in this light that Ms. Frazer’s statements and testimonies must be understood. After all, Ms. Rice was Ms. Frazer’s doctoral thesis adviser, a mentorship that has continued to this day. Thanks to Ms. Rice, Ms. Frazer was first recruited to work as National Security Council staffer in the Bush Administration, followed by her appointment as ambassador to South Africa, and then promotion to a rank of an assistant secretary. Thus the mentor and protégé form a team and are the chief conductors of the war symphony in the African Horn. While Ms. Rice is the strategic architect of U.S. policy in the Horn, Ms. Frazer is the tactician and foot soldier in charge of implementing that policy. However, implementation of this policy requires manipulation of regional and international opinion and the manufacturing of domestic consent.

In keeping with this objective, Eritrea and Ethiopia must somehow be differentiated along the axis that separates “good” from “evil.” Meles’s presumed positive style of governance and valuable alliance on the “war on terror” must sharply be contrasted with Isaias’s dictatorial rule and alleged “sponsorship of terrorism.” The truth is that both Isaias and Meles are twins in substance and addiction to power. True, there are some superficial differences that are adroitly exploited by Meles himself and his international handlers. Where Isaias has wedded ruthlessness to his political buffoonery, Meles has perfected the synthesis of ruthlessness and Machiavellian shrewdness. Where Isaias has cast himself as a dictator in the mode of Idi Amin, Meles knows how to simulate appearance by taking with one hand what he appears to have given with the other hand. We would recall that, because of his Machiavellian simulation of appearance, Prime Minister Blair of Britain hand-picked Meles to serve as a member of the 17-man Commission for Africa, the supposed mission of which was to promote “good” governance in Africa.

In fact, overestimating his international stature and underestimating the mass support of opposition to his misrule, Meles agreed to hold competitive multiparty elections in 2005. When it backfired, Meles then picked up all opposition leaders and threw them in jail accusing them of treason and inciting genocide. In the ensuing nationwide demonstrations against the stolen elections, his security forces used live munitions and killed about 200 young people and herded over 40,000 Ethiopians into various concentration camps. In addition to the perpetration of genocide by attrition against the Anuak, Somali and Oromo peoples, Meles has continued to trample upon the civil and human rights of Ethiopians. Despite these gross domestic violations coupled with his defiant rejection of the international verdict on the border issue, the Bush Administration has continued to pamper Meles and present him as a strategic partner to Congress and the American people; evidence is his role as a proxy service provider in Somalia.

The Bush Administration’s Janus-like approach to the African Horn has unavoidably raised concern even here in the United States. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution in October 2007, requiring the Administration to tie U.S. aid to Ethiopia to improved conditions of human rights, even though Ms. Frazer fought hard against this congressional move. Even some of the Administration’s own supporters found her staunch opposition to the effort to promote human rights governance in Ethiopia confusing, if not objectionable. For example, Republican Congressman and presidential campaigner, Tom Tancredo, found Ms. Frazer’s testimony frustratingly confusing. As he put it:

“We have, from time to time, heard testimony in this committee from the State Department on a variety of issues dealing with specific countries in Africa in particular in which the justification for our support of those particular governments is based upon, to a certain extent, anyway, their support for our side in the war against radical Islam.

It is a question I have that really has never been satisfactorily answered, and that is this: Is there a specific criterion that the State Department uses to determine at what point we become an apologist for a country that otherwise would not be the case? That is to say, we would — if that one factor, their support for our efforts in the war against radical Islam, if that were not there, we would be on a decidedly different relationship with them. We would be antagonistic about them because of their human rights abuses.

Is there some criteria, specific criteria, that the State Department uses to determine at what point we change from being antagonistic because of their human rights abuses to being supportive… Because it seems quite confusing to me. In certain conditions, in certain situations, we seem to overlook these human rights abuses; in others, we don’t.

I think of this condition here in Ethiopia, for instance. … It just seems like such a confusing policy, and all I’m trying to do is determine whether there is actually a policy or whether it is a totally subjective analysis, case by case; this country has done just about enough to get us into the position of supporting their efforts, and this group or this country hasn’t.

Can you tell me that? Can you help me understand what the thinking process is inside the State Department to determine which countries we will support, even if their human rights abuses are as identified in these reports in Ethiopia?

MS. Frazer, instead of directly answering the Congressman’s question, offered a convoluted explanation of the Administration’s position on gross human rights violation in Meles’s Ethiopia. The crucial subtext of her answer is that America has strategic priorities in the African Horn other than promoting human rights in Ethiopia. As she put it: “Our relationship with Ethiopia is a complex relationship. It’s a multifaceted relationship. It is not solely a relationship based on the terror threat in the Horn of Africa. It is, in fact, a much more complex relationship.”

What Ms. Frazer implies in her answer to Congressman Tancredo’s pointed question is that American strategic interest will always take precedence over concerns about, human rights or democracy promotion in Ethiopia or even over the explosive Ethio Eritrean conflict. As far as Ms. Frazer’s logic goes, the American aid extended to Meles is not adequate, which means that he must further be rewarded in other ways, such as overlooking his gross human rights violations and his defiant rejection of the international court’s decision. For example, he should not be pressured to fully accept the international decision on the boundary issue; he has to be encouraged to accept, at least in principle, a peaceful settlement of the dispute with Eritrea; but, if or when he continues to ignore the will of the international community or even if he takes Ethiopia to war with Eritrea, then the U.S. would support him, albeit reluctantly, in order to preserve his loyalty to Washington. This posture can be rationalized by establishing a moral equivalence between Meles and Isaias on the border issue, in general, and by designating Isaias as a sponsor of transnational terrorism, in particular. With respect to the first justification, Isaias, too, is guilty of violating the provisions of the boundary decision, because he blocked the movement of U.N. observers and has deployed regular troops to the temporary security zone; even when Meles offers to talk on the boundary issue, Isaias has refused to talk, insisting on implementation of the decision. Moreover, in order to make Eritrea look resistant to new ideas, the Bush administration brought the U.N on board to supply an alternative formula to ostensibly make the boundary commission’s decision acceptable to Meles. For example, in consultation with the United States and over the head of the international court, UN Secretary General Annan appointed Lloyd Axeworthy (former Canadian foreign minister) as a special envoy to mediate between Ethiopia and Eritrea. The overarching purpose of his mission was to convince Eritrea to accept some tangible modifications of the Hague verdict in order to obtain Meles’s cooperation on the boundary demarcation. When the Axeworthy ill-conceived approach collapsed, the Bush Administration then directly inserted itself in the matter, ostensibly as an impartial mediator. Ms. Frazer was designated as the trouble shooter to shuttle between Asmara and Addis Abeba to make the two sides talk about how to modify the Hague decision, in effect shelving away the final and binding verdict of the boundary commission. However, when the Isaias regime refused her request to visit the disputed boundary and assess the situation with a view to modifying the final and binding verdict, Ms. Frazer felt snubbed. On the other hand, Meles opportunistically exploited the fissure between Isaias and Ms. Frazer and provided all the necessary accommodation for her to visit the disputed area from the Ethiopian side. Following her visit to the area, Ms. Frazer then proposed that a “referendum” be held to determine the future of Badme. This posture not only rewards Meles’s intransigence but also represents an open repudiation of the Hague decision. The fact is that Ms. Frazer has neither the legal competence nor the technical expertise to substitute her own predilection for the collective wisdom of the international community on the border issue.

What this entire machination boils down to is that the US Administration is acting unlawfully to obstruct the demarcation of the boundary in accordance with the “final and binding” decisions of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission.

When Isaias continued to hold on to the spirit and letter of the international verdict and treated the American self appointed mediation role with incredulity, another stratagem had to be found, and that was to call Isaias a sponsor of transnational terrorism. It is an undeniable fact that Isaias and Meles have been shopping for surrogates to undermine each other’s political survival. On this point neither can claim a moral virtue. To elucidate the point made above, it is useful to reproduce the exchange between Ms. Frazer and Congressman Payne during her testimony in Congress.

REP. PAYNE begins his questioning as follows: I see where you were quoted in the paper that Eritrea should be placed on the terrorist list. I just wonder — you know that’s a serious situation, I’m just wondering what evidence? I think when we take countries and isolate them; don’t have negotiations with them, don’t discuss and push them in a corner, we’re certainly not moving towards trying to have a solution. And wonder what evidence is it that Eritrea should be placed as a country on a terrorist list?

MS. FRAZER: Well, Mr. Chairman, I did see in the newspaper where members — or where, you know, staff like Ted Dagne and others have said that Eritrea has been, you know, very cooperative on terrorism. Well, that may have been at a time, but the clearest evidence of Eritrea’s support for terrorism is the fact that Hassan Dahir Aweys was sitting in Asmara at the invitation of the government of Eritrea — an individual who’s designated under our Executive Order 13224, as a terrorist, as well as under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1267 as a terrorist.

So if there was any question about my statement about their support, the fact that they allowed him to come to their country and sit on the stage is clear evidence that — whereas, as Ted said, this is one country where fighting extremists and terrorists was a priority. Well, clearly it’s not anymore, and that the priority is to take down Prime Minister Meles. And they will associate with any extremist terrorist organization to do so, including supporting Aweys and others who are part of the al-Shabbah, who have been sitting in Eritrea, who have been trained by Eritrea, who have been armed, financed and supported by Eritrea.

REP. PAYNE: And just let me conclude. My questioning is that we supported the warlords — gave them weapons, gave them money, when the accused bombers were there in Somalia — I mean — yes, in Somalia, when these warlords controlled Somalia. And so if we want to start giving examples of people we support — as the same ones that brought the Blackhawk down and killed our rangers back years ago, the U.S. government decides that we will support them, even, in fact — and in spite of the fact that we knew that these persons accused of the embassy bombings were there in cozy with the warlords that we supported.

So when we bring out Ted Dagne and something that he said, I think if we want to get into a debate — and maybe we need to have one at some time when we have more time, because there is seemed to be there is a counterbalance for every question and every instance that you use — I could give five others of something that makes it even worse.

From Ms. Frazer’s perspective, if Isaias is determined to destroy America’s “man” in Ethiopia, who has demonstrated his loyalty to Washington by the blood and sweat of his troops in Somalia, then the “regime change” formula must be applied in Eritrea. Here both Ms. Frazer and Meles see a presumably promising substitute to Isaias in the self-proclaimed Eritrean opposition. Before tackling the flawed “regime change” thesis, it is useful to clarify our own attitude toward the regime now in Asmara in order to preempt any distortion of our views by some. We are neither defenders of nor apologists for Isaias. We firmly believe that Eritrea today is ruled by a regime of brigands, political hoodlums and a handful sycophant intellectuals, presided over by Africa’s reincarnated Idi Amin. We, too, desperately yearn for regime change in Eritrea, but not one initiated, financed and directed by outside forces with the so-called Eritrean opposition providing enabling services. For a long time now, the Eritrean people have been subjected to total internal terror. And now they face a perpetual threat of external terror in the form of Ethiopian aggression and possible reoccupation. Those who parade themselves as Eritrean opposition and yet seek the sponsorship of Washington and Addis Abeba to bring about regime change in Eritrea can only subject the Eritrean people to more horrors of external intervention. Iraq and Somalia are immediate examples. What Eritrea desperately yearns for today are not neo Challabists who ignominiously seek power for its own sake on the back of foreign sponsors, but principled patriots who accept the Weberian synthesis of visionary ethics and the ethics of responsibility to provide authentic national leadership. In so far as our own informed observation goes, the members of the so-called opposition who have associated themselves with the Meles regime and seek redemption from their external sponsors are equally dangerous. An opposition which has miserably failed to lead itself cannot lead a nation. Before we stopped counting, the number of the groups that roam the opposition terrain had reached more than eleven. In our humble view, the public posturing of the self-appointed opposition can only open the opportunity for the Tigrean regime in Addis to undo the independence of Eritrea.

Meles may seize the opportunity to invade Eritrea and occupy at least some parts of it under the pretext of assisting the so called Eritrean opposition. Oddly, while Isaias is busy alienating and terrorizing Eritreans, Meles is posturing himself as concerned for the welfare of Eritreans. Moreover, the quagmire that Zenawi faces in Somalia, after his initial phantom success, may provide a subtext of his motivation to attack Eritrea as a diversion. Meles may see this as a critical moment of transition to implement the regime change formula. He may believe that he could obtain American assistance to use the Eritrean opposition as a vehicle. This explains in part the rush by certain elements to welcome Ms. Frazer’s attempt to characterize the Eritrean state as a sponsor of terrorism. In principle, we are neither against opposition to Isaias’s dictatorship nor regime change. But the effort should be fundamentally homegrown and or the external opposition should dissociate from Meles and should demonstrate independence coupled with an evidence of democratically inclusive vision. Here we don’t want to convey the impression that we are painting all members of the opposition with a broad brush. We are cognizant of the fact that there are many honorable and patriotic Eritreans that operate under the general rubric of opposition. We hasten to add that there is a simple rule of thumb that distinguishes between genuine patriots and fly by night opportunists who seek a shortcut to power through foreign agency. In Eritrea’s current reality, accepting advice, support and money from the Meles regime with his vested interests in Eritrea’s disintegration is a political kiss of death. Anyone who solicits such funds or claims to be a safe conduit for such funds to “genuine democrats” is by definition, not a true democrat. The bottom line: Eritreans must oppose an externally initiated and supported regime change of any kind. Many members of the opposition are all too quick to dismiss the threat from Ethiopia as Isaias’s propaganda. It is true that dictators regularly cite concerns about outside influence and the threat of instability as their motivations for resisting pro-democracy efforts, a question naturally arises: is the regime genuinely afraid from the Tigrean threat or is this fear just a convenient justification for its repressive measures. We believe it is both. The regime is interested in holding on to power by any means necessary but the threat from the TPLF regime to Eritrea as a country is also very real. Eritrean nationalism and independence is simply an affront to bellicose Tigrean nationalism. Such sentiment clearly reflects the ongoing tug-of-war over Badme, but may also reflect lingering resentments over the independence of Eritrea which the TPLF supported for pragmatic reasons in 1993 due to its relatively weak position within Ethiopia.

Ironically, Meles’s refusal to abide by the Hague verdict and America’s counter-productive meddling in the matter has contributed to the longevity of the Isaias regime. In our view, the surest way to effect meaningful change, not only in Eritrea but also in Ethiopia, is to be true to international law and due justice to Eritrea on the boundary issue. No doubt the United States can play a constructive role. However, harvesting the promise of a new Horn of Africa policy and avoiding its perils require a diplomacy wise in its historic insights, patient and prudent about its goals, honest and clear about its true foes and friends, and credibly resolute in its use of the requisite tools to bring about the desired ends.

Whether Washington respects the outcomes of international verdicts and helps to enforce them is the crucial factor for peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Giving orders, issuing public demands and pronouncements, reneging on world court decisions and declaring arbitrary expectations are not prudent. In the Horn of Africa, U.S. double standards and disregard for international law can only plunge Eritrea and Ethiopia into unimaginable destruction.

The United States must declare in words and show in deeds that it is always on the side of the Eritrean people and their democratic efforts. A no-less-important part of such a declaration should be a commitment to respect the independence and sovereignty of Eritrea. It must use its political and economic leverage to weigh on the Ethiopian regime, so the Hague verdict on the border can be implemented. A necessary corollary of these democratic principles must be to make it clear that the United States will neither anoint any group or person as the future leader of Eritrea in the name of regime change.

*The writers are both professors of international relations and can be reached @ [email protected]