Commentary:

A Fulcrum To Move A Dictator: War or Peace

Before the Eritrean invasion of Ethiopia in May of 1998, Ethiopia and Eritrea, many people thought, had now averted the threat of famine and were on the way to an era of growth and development realizing their potentialities rather than diverting their scarce resources to sterile uses. But the current conflict has shown that these hopes were premature.

What is above all else, most potently imprinted the conflict upon the peoples' consciousness, and conscience, are the revelations of cruelty that multiplied as the Eritrean invasion and occupation got under way. To comprehend the level of destruction brought by the invading Eritrean army, we need only point at what happened to the proud Ethiopian community of Irob, which lived for generations close to the borders of Eritrea. According to the Irob community of North America, their churches were looted and their women were raped. Yet when it is multiplied by hundreds of other such communities along the 625 miles frontier and is added to all the school children that were showered with the rains of cluster bombs in Mekelle and Adigrat, we have a fair picture of what the Eritrean leadership has wrought upon the peaceful Ethiopians. Such kind of horrible stories will put an "iron curtain" in between the peoples of Ethiopia and Eritrea for generations to come.

For the last fifteen months the entire world has heard warnings from a variety of distinguished diplomats and experts about the tragic consequences of the Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict. The Ethio-Eritrean war, they warned, if it continued, will be unparalleled in its magnitude of destruction in the continental Africa's history. Indeed the predictions did not take much time to be proved. A considerable amount of material and human life have been lost since the beginning of the the Eritrean military adventure.

Even though Ethiopia and Eritrea accepted the Alger's OAU peace plan, the problem of bringing a lasting peace seems to be growing more vexing. The people of Ethiopia and Eritrea truly prefer to see every possible step taken to bring a lasting peace. Most people of the region, whether of good will or not, do not like war. Nobody likes to spend his entire life battling except may be the Eritrean leader.

Unwilling to trust the 'good faith' of the Eritrean dictator, who treats duplicity, distortion of facts, and subversion as legitimate instruments of foreign-policy, the Ethiopians have every reason to be suspicious of Mr. Issayas' latest acceptance of the Algiers peace plan. Most Ethiopians believe that once the Algiers peace pact is realized, there will be a pulling back from the very objective Mr. Issayas now professes to seek.

Though war has found few defenders as an instrument of Ethiopian policy, in the mind of most Ethiopians, it has remained as the final arbiter between the two countries because the only alternative to it involves the surrender of Ethiopian sovereignty to a third-party authority, such as USA and other powers. The result will be providing a demanding dictator of effective power to achieve an objective, which he views as vital for his survival. At the same time, Eritrea will continue to spread its network of subversion to areas that Ethiopia considers critical for its national security (say Somalia, Djibouti and Kenya).

Should such situations continue to occur, Ethiopia might understandably feel outraged that the peace agreement enabled the Eritrean dictator to persist in such activities with impunity. Then the Ethiopian leadership might not indefinitely contain its frustration over a peace agreement that robbed them of the power to threaten retaliation. Hence war and the threat of war would be restored as an instrument of achieving national survival. The conflict would be resumed again. In light of the appalling danger of continuing this war, that prospect may terrify Ethiopians less now than it would tomorrow.

During the last fifteen months of this conflict, Ethiopians were comforting themselves with the myopic assurance of believing that the Eritrean dictator is too proud to accept the Algiers peace plan. Mr. Issayas finally accepted the peace plan all right after a humilating and devastating defeat at the Mereb river front at the end of June. Now what? All along the OAU peace plan has served him well as an invisible defensive trench for the dictator's army. The irony is that the Ethiopian government never updated its negotiating positions reflecting Ethiopia's successful military gains since February of 1999.

The issue that had been dodged in arriving at the Algiers OAU peace agreement would now have to be faced: Should the Ethiopian government "give war a chance?" The Ethiopian government is caught on the horns of a painful dilemma: continue to seek peaceful resolution with Mr. Issayas now¯knowing that if Mr. Issayas succeed in keeping his power Ethiopia subject itself, in time, to the constant parade of activities of subversions, or continue full scale war to maintain its sovereignty¯but only by subjecting Ethiopia, to the continuing danger of isolation by the international communities orchestrated by the USA. This dilemma confronting Ethiopia places more power in the hands of the Eritrean dictator, which may then increasingly use the USA as an agency responsive to his needs and interests.

An unpleasant choice confronts Ethiopia and cannot be evaded. If the Ethiopian government decided to sign the Algiers peace pact right now, the future can only be more difficult than the past fifteen months. It may be more uplifting, as peace is more uplifting than war, but it is certain to be more difficult with Mr. Issayas' army left intact and for most Ethiopians unhappier. The Ethiopian people think that the down payment for the Algiers peace pact is too high a price to pay for the security that it purchases. It is more difficult to envision why Ethiopia now favorably situated, at least militarily, would accept a peace pact, which would dilute its advantage now and in the future.

The Race for Regional Dominance:

Within five years of its independence, Eritrea has conflicts with the Sudan, Yemen, Djibouti and now Ethiopia. Eritrea's behavior has injected complications into that part of the region and poses a major obstacle for anyone attempting to visualize the future peace and stability of the whole region.

Every country has its set of myths, which incorporate and symbolize its political, economic and social aspirations. Thus, Eritrea has a quest for being the "Hong Kong" of the region and the cult of military powerhouse of the region. While this dream is in no sense a unique Eritrean phenomena, it is surely true to say that in no other country has the effort been carried so far and with such persistence and arrogance.

It is obvious that the capacity to sustain a conflict, such as the Eritrean military adventures against all its neighbors, ultimately depends on economic strength. Sometimes a small state, such as Eritrea, could for a time play the part of a regional power just because it did possess an efficient state administration and a solid support by a superpower.

If history is our guidance, the military might of any great nation rests ultimately on its economic capacity¯relative to its rivals¯to sustain that posture. Certainly, one can argue that the moral, cultural, historical and spiritual forces help to make states into regional powers. But the economic capacity of a nation should be the backbone of its power. However, economic resources need a high degree of state organization to be effective. It is therefore important to have a strong state that is capable of providing efficient centralized administration needed to support a vast military power.

The Eritrean dilemma, we think, is the basic problem of choice between short-term military preoccupations, feed by the spirit of unthinking self-confidence and bumptious/hollow pride, and the long-term economic strengths needed to sustain regional power. Thus, for instance, the costs of policing the borders of Eritrea right now is exceeding the rate of new wealth creation Mr. Issayas needed to sustain his dominating role in the face of such competing neighbors as Ethiopia and Sudan.

Military might became the cornerstone for Eritrean national esteem and identity. Not only must military prowess be possessed, but also there must be a show of its possession. Hence Eritrean military prowess must be displayed by unprovoked "conspicuous aggression" of Ethiopia. War making and public relations became the principal honorific employments for the Eritrean government and its zealot professionals. With the Eritreans in Diaspora cheer leading, war has become the national past time of Eritrea. At the end of this road there can only lay national catastrophe and an embittered people. Unless the Eritreans wake up, they shall find defeat not at the hands of Ethiopians but in their own incapacity to deal with reality.

When the Eritrean economy failed to match up regionally with rising Ethiopian economy and that of Tirgay region in particular, then there was a tendency, by the Eritrean leadership, to retrench on the defense side to prevent history rather than to increase economic investment and move with the tide more realistically. The decline in relative economic capacity and there by the perception of a down spiral of inflated national ego led the Eritrean leadership to build up the Eriterean defense forces to unsustainable levels. The more the Eritrean state increases its power, the larger the proportion of its resources it devotes to maintaining it. This in turn in the long run leads to a weakening of power which will eventually leave the Eritrean leadership politically vulnerable, exposed, and unable to perform the role Mr. Issayas wishes to retain.

Many observers regard Ethiopia as the sleeping giant of the region. Despite its size and its ability to mobilize thousands of soldiers, it remains economically very poor relative to other powers of region, such as Egypt. However, if Ethiopia sustains its current average growth rate of 6.5% and manages its ethnic federation smoothly, then it would have the economic base to be a regional power, and this possibility concerns Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea¯in the first two cases renewing fears of Ethiopian regional dominance and economic stability which might lead to the realization of dams on tributaries of the Nile river, and in the case of Eritirea, it means adding more pressure to the starvation of the Eritrean economy through excessive additional defense costs.

The Role of the International Community:

If the international community should not rush to judgment, neither they should flee from their responsibilities. Among the many principles of international law that the international community faithfully follows, the idea of territorial sovereignty must be given high rank. Countries, irrespective of their level of development, have followed the same principle when their sovereign integrity was at issue. Every diplomat, minister and senator, from every corner of the world, speaks with one voice regarding the legal sovereignty of a county to defend itself from an invading army. Otherwise, it is possible, indeed almost inevitable, that the nature of the international order will be something entirely new. To refuse to recognize this fact is in itself a form of intervention on the side of the aggressor.

Most of the diplomats, especially that of USA, are well aware of Eritrean aggression. But to the dismay of many observers, Eritrea's aggression was not denounced enough by the international community to have any impact on Eritrea. Even more disconcerting in view of the Ethiopian position is the UN Security Council's unanimous resolution called for a ceasefire and urged all countries to stop sale of arms and munitions to Ethiopia or Eritrea. For all Ethiopians, the rewards of many agonizing months of forbearance are inadequate, the punishments too severe.

The Ethiopian Government has, we believe, taken the proper course. It is abundantly clear that the government of Ethiopia did not choose war as much as it is slipped into it. It is really unfair to hold the Ethiopian government responsible for the consequences of this war. All fingers should point at the Eritrean leaders who have develop a fashion of speaking "peace" with a frequency that borders on desperation. Why is Mr. Issayas suddenly become the gatekeeper of peace? Nothing verifiable has happened to suggest that he is ready for peaceful resolution.

The negative lesson which Mr. Issayas proved, and which he hopefully learned from it too late for the mothers of Eritrea, is that resort to aggression works injury even to those who invoke it. He should also be reminded that he is heading a country not a guerilla movement. This period is no longer the era of guerrilla warfare, when one captures an area and forces the other party to come to the negotiating table.

So much irreparable damage has already been done in escalating this conflict, so very much, yet there is still much to preserve, much to save if Eritreans and Ethiopians are equally determined in search of their common long lasting peaceful destiny. We also hope the international community will do all they can to save what is left of these communities which are dismantled by the Eritrean invasion.