The Threat of Violence Cannot Serve the Cause of Peace
by Alemseged Tesfai*

(Source: Dehai,  http://dehai.org/archives/dehai_archive/0393.html )

As the Eritrean-Ethiopian Boundary Commission prepares itself to give its verdict, it seems as if some members of the Ethiopian community of writers, scholars and intellectuals are being seized by what one may call, "pre-demarcation jitters." 

Both sides to the conflict have now presented their respective cases to the Commission. Justice is on course and, as far as we know, neither side has any clue of what exactly the Commission's verdict is going to look like. Since we have no basis to doubt the Commission's sincerity and neutrality in the matter, we have every reason to expect its decision on the boundary issue to be based on the relevant colonial treaties and related laws and to be legally unassailable, fair and just. Unless the Algiers Agreement is subverted, both sides have committed themselves to the acceptance of the Commission's verdict regardless of whether its tenets correspond to their separate demands and expectation. If this proves true, then February will blow the final whistle to call an end to this whole ugly and destructive conflict. 

In such a situation, it should be incumbent on the citizens of both countries, and especially on those who call themselves intellectuals, to help and push their respective governments move on the path to peace. It is, of course, only natural that they hope and pray that their side wins the day in court. But, to go beyond this and to urge politicians to continue on the route to war by creating false historical premises and distorting events is not only an abandonment of intellectual integrity, but also a grievous act of submission to the instincts of expansionism. 

It is regrettable to see that the number of Ethiopian writers and scholars falling into the latter category has been increasing lately. Recently, a former minister of the Haile Selassie regime and one of the known liberal politicians of that era, Ato Belai Abbai, has written a letter to the Boundary Commission threatening that body with a future war and instability in the region, should it fail to adjudicate in Ethiopia's favour. Another Ethiopian writer, Dr. Ghelawdewos Araia, has just posted on the internet, an article entitled, "Ethiopia's Territorial Integrity is Inextricably Linked to the Red Sea." It is amazing how, in these two documents, the learned Ethiopians have selected, isolated and distorted with impunity, the historical, political and legal processes, facts and realities that have gone into the making of Eritrea as we know it today. 

Both Belai and Ghelawdewos make quantum jumps backward in time and history to find suitable slots from where to build for Ethiopia a right of way all its own, but right through sovereign Eritrea and on to the shores of the Red Sea. Normally, quantum jumps in time and history, backwards or otherwise, belong to the realms of such science fiction classics as H.G Wells's, "The Time Machine" or some similar tales of unfettered imagination. As long as such leaps and landings to selected periods and moments of the past serve Ethiopia's territorial ambitions, it seems, some people are willing to make believe that "time machines" do exist. They are also willing to pretend that their carefully handpicked historical facts and fiction have the magical power of totally erasing everything else that history has to provide which is not to their liking. 

Ghelawdewos, for example, takes great pains to go through a journey that begins in the sixteenth Century and ends in the late nineteenth, to explain the wars that Abyssinian kings and war lords fought and the sacrifices that they paid to control Eritrea and to gain access to its Red Sea coastline. He also describes how treaties for the desired access were signed with different powers, how Subagadis came close to physical control of the coastline between 1818 and 1831, how the highlands of Eritrea were paying dues to Abyssinian war lords and, of course, how Alula and Yohannes occupied the highlands before the advent of the Italians. He makes big of an abandoned idea of the early of 1920's, when Italy briefly toyed with the notion of allowing Ethiopia a corridor to the Red Sea. 

Belai Abbai, on his part, raises three "issues". First, is the now well-known claim that "Ethiopian territory on the Tigrai frontier", as he calls it, has been unjustly included in the Temporary Security Zone and that this should be returned to Ethiopia without conditions. Apparently, Belai has presented to the Commission, his own version of a map, which he claims provides a "viable solution based on the historical jurisdictional boundary" of Eritrea and Ethiopia. What the term "historical jurisdictional" is supposed to mean is, of course, anybody's guess. Since Belai Abbai's map has not been made available and, in any case, since the Commission will soon tell us what exactly the "historical jurisdictional boundary", to borrow his term, actually looks like, there is no point arguing here. We can wait, as surely, Belai Abbai could have done. 

His second and third "issues" deserve more attention and scrutiny. The former minister here says, "The Danakil (Afar) Coast has been recognized as the indispensable sea outlet of Ethiopia by the Four Powers since August 1948 prior to the disposition of Eritrea in whatever shape or form. The 1950 UN Resolution confirmed Ethiopia's prior right to the Afar Coast as its natural sea outlet. Moreover, … an Ethiopia which remains land locked without a strategic gateway of its own to the sea will be subjected to future arms embargo and blackmail by the powers that directly or indirectly control the coast…" Based on this premise, he makes the final assertion that, "The Algiers 'solution' of a boundary based on colonial treaties reverses the historical record starting with the Peace Treaty with Italy of February 10, 1947 in which Italy renounced its right and title to Eritrean territory. Moreover, in 1952, Eritrea came under Ethiopian sovereignty based on the UN Resolution of 1950 in which colonial boundaries ceased to exist. The Algiers agreement reverses via the backdoor, these historic decisions which are accepted international law." 

Both Belai and Ghelawdewos then go on to accuse the present EPRDF government in Addis Ababa for being responsible for Ethiopia's "loss" of access to the sea, as if that country had made a free donation of the whole coastline to Eritrea. Assab, they say, should be given to Ethiopia. 

One can, of course, go through all the factual arguments presented by the two writers to contest their veracity and to counter the interpretations given to them. Such seemingly ridiculous claims do have the effect of poisoning the minds of future Ethiopian generations and, for this reason alone, they need to be addressed and refuted adequately. But, let us reserve that interesting exercise in comparative historiography to more extensive replies. We do note, however, that for what it would have been worth, Ghelawdewos has not given any evidence of any secure and time-tested Ethiopian route to the sea. More importantly, we note that, at least when it comes to Eritrea, Ethiopian historiography is a one-track and one-dimensional approach that doggedly pursues a single stubborn line, although repeatedly and unequivocally disproved and defeated time and time again. 

What, for example, does Ghelawdewos's long list of Abyssinian exploits across the Mereb tell us beyond detailing those frustrated ambitions? What legal obligations are those unconsummated and failed, intermittent feudal raids into this country supposed to impose on the present state and structure of sovereign Eritrea? Ethiopian historiography, in short, ought to realize that Eritrean history constitutes what the Eritrean people did to build their nation, not what Ethiopian rulers and their supporters did and are doing to prevent it from coming about or to arrest its survival. 

In other words, it is not what Subagadis or Wubie or Alula did in Eritrea that defines the Eritrean entity and identity, it is what the Eritreans did to resist their raids and attempted conquests and rules, the various wars they fought against them and other invaders, the tremendous sacrifices they paid to realize their own dreams… that have served as part of the background to this nation. Remember that, to Eritreans, Subagadis was a marauding predator and Wubie, the terror who ransacked Semhar and torched Emkullu and Massawa, only to beat a retreat. Alula may have occupied Asmara and its vicinity for a dozen years, but he was the messenger of death who helped decimate the Kunama to the 15,000 that the Italians counted at the turn of the century, from the 200,000-strong that Werner Munzinger had found in 1865. 

Expansionism is a disease with myopic consequences. The refusal by some Ethiopians with an expansionist attitude to look behind the Eritrean phenomenon, to search for the social and historical rationale behind its emergence, has been at the root of this seemingly endless conflict. Their continuous song that "had Italy not colonized Eritrea, it would have been part of Ethiopia", is an empty statement that has no historical value. The fact is that, during the Scramble for Africa, Italy did colonize Eritrea. By the treaties of 1900, 1902 and 1908, it gave to Eritrea its present, final shape and boundaries, just as the British did with Kenya in 1895 and with Uganda in 1926. Unfortunately for Ethiopian ruling-class ambitions, nations in Africa came about in this manner and Eritrea is no exception. Neither, for that matter, is Ethiopia itself. Ethiopian historiography notwithstanding, the Italian colonial experience is what defined Eritrea as a modern nation and state. Things happened within its boundaries that neither Ethiopia nor the great powers of the day could appreciate when the question of its disposal became an international issue after Italy's defeat in 1941 and Britain's occupation of the territory. 

It seems that what happened after August 1948 and 1950 is of little consequence to Belai Abbai and friends. True, in September (not August) 1948, three of the Four Powers sought to allow Ethiopia access to the Red Sea, and not necessarily just through Assab. Only the Soviet Union supported a solution leading to Eritrean independence. So, what is that supposed to import to Assab's, or to Dankalia's present status? History has already recorded that the Four Powers were looking at the fate of the Italian Colonies, including Libya and Somalia, through the lenses of their own separate interests. They were not in the least concerned with other considerations, particularly, with the rights of the citizens of the colonies. As a result, they disagreed on practically every point regarding their disposal. Finally, they admitted their failure and passed the whole package to the newly formed UN General Assembly, where they continued to pursue their own separate agendas. There ended their collective role in the matter and there also ends its significance to Assab's present status. 

If Ato Belai and friends think that the UN Resolution of 1950, which joined Eritrea in a false federation with Ethiopia is still operative, then they are all hopelessly behind the times. The 1950 Resolution was a UN imposition on the majority of the Eritrean people, who sought independence for their country. If the UN of those days had thought that, to use Ato Belai's words, Ethiopia's "right to the Afar Coast as its natural sea outlet", superceded the right of the Eritrean people to self-determination, then the UN too was hopelessly wrong, and so it was proved. For ten years following the imposition of the "federal solution", Eritreans launched a sustained political struggle to regain their rights. They were suppressed by Ethiopia and ignored by the UN. Not an eyebrow was raised on the halls of that august body when Hailes Selassie put pretensions aside to dismantle the federal arrangement and annex Eritrea in November 1962. Neither was much attention given to an incident a year earlier, in 1961, when an obscure organization called, the Eritrean Liberation Front, announced the launching of an armed struggle to liberate Eritrea from Ethiopian rule. 

Belai Abbai and friends may seek to gloss over, forget, wipe out the thirty years of a bitterly fought liberation war that culminated in the defeat of Ethiopian rule and the independence of Eritrea. But hard reality tells us that Eritrea's independence of 1991 and the UN-sponsored referendum of 1993 overrode, cancelled out, defeated, if one wills, not only every Ethiopian territorial ambition over Eritrea, but also the UN's own ill-fated federation of forty years before. The UN's acceptance of the results of the 1993 referendum and the UN General Assembly's unanimous decision to welcome Eritrea into its ranks sealed the fate of its own old resolution and all the premises and assumptions that had led up to it. 

The argument that, with Italy's renouncement of its colonial right over Eritrea in 1947 and with the "federation" with Ethiopia "under the sovereignty of the Ethiopian Crown" in 1952, the international border disappeared, may be answered in a few sentences. Article 2 of the Eritrean Constitution of 1952 defines Eritrea as corresponding to the Italian Colony of the same name, including the islands. As a direct product and an inseparable part of the UN's Federal Act of 1950, that document is an international legal instrument that was duly approved by the Eritrean Assembly and ratified by the Emperor of Ethiopia and, on behalf of the UN, by the UN Commissioner, Senor Anze Matienzo. Just as Kenya, Uganda or practically every post-colonial African state is inconceivable without its colonial borders, so is Eritrea inconceivable without its colonial boundaries. Besides, Eritreans did not fight for a nation without borders. 

The problem is that some people in Ethiopia refuse to accept this reality. They persist on clinging to manufactured events that have no basis in Eritrean history and reality. For once, they should realize, that the 1950 UN "federal resolution", for example, was not the demand of the Eritrean people. It was an imposition by the powers of the day and it was resisted almost immediately upon implementation. Haile Selassie's annexation of Eritrea was neither willed by its people nor approved of by the Eritrean Assembly. International collusion on that illegal act was rectified by the Eritrean revolution, which survived thirty years of war and destruction to win a deserved national independence. The EPRDF did not lose Eritrea or "Danakil" or Assab, the EPLF and the people of Eritrea re-took them by force and tremendous sacrifice and established their permanent rights over them in the UN-sponsored referendum of 1993. Incidentally, the day they captured Assab, mechanized units of the Eritrean People's Liberation Army were also leading TPLF forces towards their final target -- Menelik's Palace in Addis Ababa… For this cycle of violence to end, the perpetrators of Ethiopian expansionism must finally accept that a sovereign state called Eritrea bestrides their northern and northeastern borders. So much bloodshed has been shed for this justice to be realized that it is hard to imagine how more could be sought to attempt to reverse it. 

True, access to the sea for Ethiopia through Eritrean ports is logical, important and, maybe, a necessity too. It is also in Eritrea's economic and good-neighbourly interest that this access is re-opened. But, must it come at the cost of the hard-earned rights of the people of Eritrea? Must it encroach upon their sovereignty? Have our brothers not learned form the "federation" of 1952, the annexation of 1962 and the invasions of the last war that such forceful attempts spell war and disaster because Eritrea will never give up what is rightfully its own? 

Let it be recalled that whereas previously it could access the ports only through armed convoys, Ethiopia never had as free and unchecked an access to both Assab and Massawa as it had in the seven years after Eritrean independence and before the outbreak of the 1998 war. The Ethiopian government's agents handled their own consignments through the Ethiopian Shipping Lines, employed their own men and women in their various businesses, had four schools in Assab which were run under the Ethiopian curriculum… Even those terms were negotiable. But, as it happened, the government wanted more, it wanted the whole port for itself. In the first week or so of the outbreak of conflict in May 1998, it announced, unilaterally, that it had diverted all of its cargo to other ports, thereby denying itself the use of Eritrean port facilities. Eritrea is on record, even at the height of the war, of having offered Assab and Massawa as points of entry for humanitarian consignments to Ethiopia. The gesture, as we all remember, was turned down. In addition, at no time has Eritrea ever even hinted at blocking Ethiopia's use of its ports. We have the situation here where the Ethiopian government has created a problem for itself, but is trying to use it as an excuse to satiate its desires by force or coercion. 

Eritreans will stand as united as ever in case further attempts are made to compromise their fundamental rights. Eritrean sovereignty and territorial integrity are not negotiable. Ethiopia's needs for access to the sea are clear and understandable and the equitable use of Eritrean ports has never been denied it. However, only peace, mutual respect for the rights of sovereignty and civilized negotiations and agreements can bring that desirable situation back. We are only weeks away from a momentous decision that has the potential of removing a major cause of conflict in our region. We owe it to the future generations of both our countries to seize this opportunity and to help, not intimidate, the Boundary Commission in its deliberations. The cause of peace has never been served through violence or the threats of it. Violence will only breed violence and recent history has proved that invasions, no matter how massive, are stoppable. 

Finally, writers, scholars and other professionals in both countries have the duty to be at the forefront of the search for peace and stability in our region. There is nothing patriotic, noble or intellectual about finding every excuse to fan the flames of expansionism and war.

* Alemseged Tesfai, who until 1997 was the Acting Head of the Eritrean Land commission, writes on the history of Eritrea and the Eritrean People's Liberation Army. He was Head of the Cultural Division of the EPLF and the Cultural Center of the Department of National Guidance in the Provisional Government of Eritrea. A writer and playwright, Alemseged has produced a collection of short stories, plays, essays and a novel about the Eritrean Liberation War. His play 'The Other War' was produced in the West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, UK, in September 1997. His latest book of Eritrean history in Tigrinya, AYNFELALE: Eritra 1941-1950, (Hedri Publishers, Asmara, 2001) deals with early Eritrean nationalist history and politics of 1941-1950.