Despite the current back and forth on the Technical Arrangements, the end of the Ethiopia-Eritrea war could be close at hand. This is because it has become clear to the Eritrean dictator that his May 1998 invasion agenda is dead. Let us look at the top three points on his invasion checklist:

Goal #1: Establish facts on the ground by sending Eritrean troops into Badime and forcing Ethiopia to delimit the border according to Eritrean specifications.

Result: Failure. Eritrean troops have been forcibly expelled from Badime. Ethiopia has moved beyond the original border to occupy a large section of Eritean territory. Eritrea has failed in repeated attempts to recapture Badime. The border will not be delimited according to unilateral Italian/Eritrean maps as was Eritrea’s hope.

Goal #2: Pressure the Ethiopian government to grant Eritrea further economic concessions. Most importantly, force Ethiopia to convert a large portion of Eritrea’s money supply into US dollars.

Result: Failure. There is zero possibility of this happening. The only person in Ethiopia who would even remotely consider such an outlandish demand was Meles Zenawi. He is now highly unlikely to be given a free hand in Ethio-Eritrea relations. Eritrea will be forced to restate its economic figures that it submitted to the IMF and World Bank in exchange for loan credits. The “net claims on the Birr area” item is going to end up wrecking the economic numbers. This will have a large impact on Eritrea’s future relations with the IMF and World Bank. Furthermore, the Eritrean economy is currently dead in the water. The Ethiopian export market is gone – probably for the next 20 years. Port revenues from Ethiopia (20% of Eritrea’s budget) are gone. Local currency imports from Ethiopia (teff, berbere, hides, coffee, sugar etc) are no longer available. And even though Eritrea had a good rainfall year, 20 percent of the population is surviving off food aid. Local currency food imports from Ethiopia will not be available when the inevitable drought recurs and fully 80 percent of Eritrea needs food aid (as was the case in 1994)

Goal #3: Remind the TPLF who is the more powerful partner in the EPLF-TPLF alliance.

Result: Failure. The EPLF-TPLF alliance is dead. The EPLFs feeling of military invincibility is dead. Thousands of Eritrean soldiers and conscripts are dead.

The picture is becoming clear even to the most dim-witted of the Eritrean dictators supporters. That’s why Eritrea has completely caved in and finally accepted the peace plan. The sticking points in the Technical Arrangements were the role of the militia and the total restoration of Ethiopian sovereignty as a precondition. These sticking points were inserted into the document as a face-saving gesture for Eritrea. They are really not significant in and of themselves. Ethiopia could have signed the document back in September. But even here, Eritrea has no choice but to agree to Ethiopia’s legitimate demands for a revision of the Technical Arrangements. The Eritrean dictator has realized that Eritrea is too weak to do anything about it.

Ethiopia has the power and legitimate right to impose further conditions on Eritrea in exchange for a ceasefire. Unfortunately the Ethiopian government does not seem to be taking a strong negotiation stance and has agreed to leave many issues for “investigation” after the ceasefire. This means these issues will never be resolved. Other issues that require resolution before a permanent ceasefire include:

• formal identification of Eritrea as the aggressor party,
• compensation for the victims of Eritrea’s invasion (the aggressor party has to pay)
• the return of Ethiopian property worth over 125 million dollars that was looted from Assab and Massawa. If the Eritrean government cannot account for the missing items it should be forced to pay compensation.
• renunciation of Eritrean training, arming and transporting of terrrorist organizations
• official repudiation of Eritrea’s spurious demand to have its money supply converted into US dollars by Ethiopia.

There seems to be little rationale in holding out on signing the Technical Arrangements due to disagreements which are mainly symbolic in nature while other more important issues remain ignored.

If the Ethiopian government takes the initiative and lays out a clear roadmap to a revised peace treaty it will neutralize the outside pressure and focus the process on achieving justice for the aggrieved party (Ethiopia). Eritrea has no power and no negotiating cards to play anymore. It will accept the points listed above whether the Eritrean dictator wants to or not. He has no choice – Eritrea has no capacity to achieve its goals through war.

As the aggressor party, and the party that has been militarily defeated in the main war zone, Eritrea has to accept peace on Ethiopia’s terms.

- Dagmawi