Lloyd Axworthy, the former Canadian foreign minister now serving as a UN envoy for Eritrea and Ethiopia, last week warned that the two countries “risk starting a new war.” Subsequently, Legwaila Joseph Legwaila, the UN peacekeeping chief for Eritrea and Ethiopia also followed suit these last two days, and warned time was running out for both warring nations.
Well, what would be a surprise to many observers is if the two sides embrace peace and avoid war. They can’t.
Reasons:
President Isaias Afwerki has many unfinished jobs, and ironically, none of them is about the dispute over the much-talked-about border demarcation. Border demarcation is a perfect cover-up for other goals deep-seated in the mind of the Eritrean leader. If border-demarcation has been the problem,Prime Minister Meles had offered everything Eritrea had sought from Ethiopia. If war-torn Eritrea had to go to war for the second time in five years, it should have been because Eritrea has become landlocked because Isaias Afwerki had to choose, after his ignominious defeat in Ethiopia’s 2000 blitzkrieg, between the dissolution of his government and being tried for war crimes in an Ethiopian court, or sign in, like all other defeated leaders before him, the Document of Surrender in recognition of the sovereign rights of Ethiopia over, at least, the Red Sea Port of Assab. Even at that point, war shouldn’t have stood as an option for anyone who knows the ugly side of war, and the Red Sea littoral is Ethiopia’s historic and legal frontier.
Isaias was allowed to walk free from facing war crimes charges that are well-documented but left to gather dust in the shelves of the Claims Commission in The Hague. The one and only credited with saving President Isaias from being tried as an Eritrean Prisoner of War is undoubtedly Meles Zenawi, the prime minister who spent much of the last war how to overcome an in-party fighting within his ruling party, the EPRDF, facing serious charges from a splinter TPLF group that the prime minister was serving Eritrean interests while churning out fake anti-Eritrean statements in the diplomatic front.
President Isaias knows that if it were not for Meles, who shocked Ethiopians by turning their military victories that they achieved at the cost of the deaths of about 70,000 of their children into court-room defeats, he wouldn’t have lived another day, let alone to reign as a merciless warlord over five years, intimidating Ethiopia with the threat of another war and destruction. On top of these mammoth scandals against Ethiopia, Isaias should have been grateful to Meles for setting up the Algiers Agreement on defunct 19th century colonial schemes designed to strip Ethiopia of its natural frontiers like the Red Sea.
Even if Meles passes documents to the so-called Sir Eliyahu Commission to fulfill Eritrea’s morbid territorial ambitions at the cost of a shrinking Ethiopia, why is Isaias bent on launching another war against Ethiopia?
Isaias, who prior to the war had invited Egyptian and other Arab military attaches to visit his “impenetrable” trenches that some admiring reporters drew parallels with European subways, but were torn to pieces in a few days of fighting with Ethiopia, suffers from the idea of being defeated. His Middle East hosts from Qatar to Egypt to Libya had set the bar so high the Eritrean found it incompatible with living a life carrying the scar of a disarmed soldier.
Accordingly, the actions of Mr. Isaias speak for themselves that he has to avenge his defeat, anytime, no matter whatever Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has offered in exchange for “peace.” It has to be avenged because Isaias, who has herded over 300,000 able-bodied Eritreans in military barracks, has to live up to the expectations that his international financiers had bestowed on him as the “invincible” warrior, as a military genius in the Horn.
This condition is akin to what had afflicted Iraq’s ousted dictator Saddam Hussien, who after he survived an humiliating defeat during the 1990 Gulf War found respite to re-build his army, and relapsed into a costly military showdown with the United States, to please the Arab World that he was once again capable of unnerving the U.S. military. He ended up in a seven-foot macabre. Likewise, Isaias is just a prototype Saddam Hussien minus the oil fields.
But again, there are Ethiopian rebel groups in Eritrea who drank too much from the war rhetoric fountain in Asmara, thus fueling the temptation for Isaias to go to war. Such realities put Isaias in a vulnerable position. The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), a group which hopes to trade the dangerous path of secessionist Eritrea, and another rebel group, the Ethiopian Patriots Front, have for long pinned their hopes of achieving their goals in Ethiopia on “Big-man Isaias,” whom they trust dearly that he would pull the trigger to start what they may shamelessly call the “Mother of all Wars.” If we briefly touch other sources that would prompt Isaias to try to attack Ethiopia are also the forces directly linked to the thorny Nile River politics.
This time, the “war wouldn’t stop at the border” – Meles
The last offer from Meles to hand over sovereign Ethiopian territories to Isaias came in the form of a recent document known as the “Five-point Peace Plan.” Meles was ready, among others, to hand over Badme, provided that his government was left untouched. In addition, Meles promised to start “Normalization Program” with Eritrea, the inference of which means Eritrea can suck out whatever resources it eyes in Ethiopia. But since Isaias Afwerki’s goal was “I should own Ethiopia,” he scoffed at Meles Zenawi’s offer, and dismissively suggested that it was too late to stop what he may set out to accomplish within Ethiopia.
Realizing that Afwerki’s plans are far more than what he had in mind, Meles quickly resorted to reinforcing the army he had abandoned to neglect, and dramatized that his “five-point plan” was like a double-edged sword meant to defend Ethiopian territories. With the rhetoric of patriotism, Meles warned Isaias that any next war “wouldn’t stop at the border.” After all, Isaias Afwerki’s promised onslaught was aimed at toppling Meles from power. Is Isaias capable of doing that? In spite of the war-preparedness of Isaias, Meles has a greater advantage of crushing any Isaias attempt at destabilizing Ethiopia, and even worse, of Isaias’ wild dreams of crowning the secessionist OLF with the reigns of power. As they say, a burned child dreads fire, and Meles has already learned a lesson from the previous war, that despite his loyalty to Isaias, the Eritrean leader has made it clear nothing short of the demise of Meles would quench his diabolical thirst out of the ruins of Ethiopia. Despite widespread political opposition to Meles, he still maintains control over a disciplined army that can easily obliterate the long columns of forced conscripts Isaias calls “an army.”
Isaias may hesitatingly admit he can’t win a war as a leader of a demoralized army, and a devastated economy, but again, a desperate man knows no bounds, and may try to spark border skirmishes, just if that may win him some diplomatic sympathy, and the much-needed money from “seminar-soaked” Eritreans in the diaspora. Besides, he may count on Meles once again, hoping Meles may not really be serious when he said, “This time the war may not stop at the border.”
On our part as Ethiopians, we have no choice but to struggle for a regime change, by whatever means, without losing sight of the forces that try to break the bond of our unity. If Meles fought the Ethiopian Afars to extinction because they said they were Ethiopians and their Red Sea ancestral homeland is part and parcel of Ethiopia since antiquity, we should expect little that Meles would act dramatically against Eritrea that would lead to Ethiopia’s restoration of territories he ceded to Eritrea. Besides, it should also be noted there are about a dozen Eritrean opposition groups supported by Mr. meles, signifying that even if he is at odds with Isaias, Meles’ devotion to Eritrea remains as strong as ever. We’ve had enough, and everything boils down to our persistent effort for a collective power to bid Mr. Meles goodbye!
