who is the prominent Specialist in
International Law and Jurisprudence. It is, in my view, a
required reading for those of us especially concerned with this question.
The rulers of Ethiopia are worried about the political backlash resulting from the eviction
of populations in the course of the demarcation process. In this regard their concern is
confined broadly to the areas lying within the terminal points which the EEBC calls the
Central Sector up to and including Badema. More specifically, they are concerned with
the border towns having large populations and which were on the public radar screen
during the war against the Eritreans. Badema and other towns are needed for public
relations; the rulers are by definition less interested in protecting the populations in the
rural areas else they would not have agreed to colonial boundaries that deprive peoples’
rights to their lands. Even in the Central Sector significant areas have been ceded to
Eritrea. What people are asking is whether the town of Badema is the only concern of the
EPDRF/TPLF regime ? The answer is in the affirmative, because they are only concerned
about their public image. The rulers believe that if they can secure Badema town
somehow it will be sufficient to hoodwink the public and silence the complaints coming
from areas similarly affected With regard to Irob, once they have secured the town of
Alitena they were willing to cede it seems the rural areas of northern Irob. There is no
other rationale for the present partitioning of Irob since it follows neither treaty which
does not apply to it for if that were the case the 1904 Italian Commission could not have
been created, nor traditional boundary along the Oma-gade/Endelli river which was
confirmed Anelli’s map of 1935 quoted by the EEBC.
(b) The Deconstruction of the Ethiopian State to create a land locked Meles State with its
New Boundaries.
So far we raised the human rights issue which is one facet of the problem created by the
Algiers Agreement. The other facet of the problem concerns the very survival of the
Ethiopian state itself, a point we have emphasized many times before but still worth
repeating. This so-called Algiers Agreement cedes Sovereign historic territories to Eritrea
of such strategic and political importance without which Ethiopia cannot survive with
real independence. The very fact of invoking defunct colonial treaties is to achieve this
goal. In other words, the clique at the helm of EPDRF/TPLF have decided to land lock
Ethiopia for the benefit of Eritrea; a unique and shameful event in all history. The
members of this clique have, as Tsegai Mebratu characterizes them, cleverly managed to
penetrate the Tigrai nationalists and lead the movement as “Trojan Horses” to carry out
an Eritrean agenda. This is not name calling, as behavioral psychologists have taught, one
has to judge them by what they do rather than what they say or whom they claim to
represent. And all this destruction of the Ethiopian State which runs counter to the stream
of history and Ethiopian identity that he carried out is as a representative of the Tigrai
people using the Tigrayan army as fodder to serve Eritrean interests. How on earth could
they explain to the Ethiopian army and to the border militia why Ethiopia had to fight a
war with Eritrea the only result of which is the loss of Ethiopian blood and the loss of
historical districts. And paradoxically, the cause of the war was the invasion of Eritrea of
these very districts which as a result of the war Ethiopian troops recovered and then
since Meles Zenawi had always believed that ‘colonial treaties were sacrosanct’ he
returns these districts to Eritrea on the ground that they were after all Eritrean territories
with a straight face and no regret? This is a fact. He had harbored a grudge when the
nationalists were prosecuting the war against his will. He came back with a vengeance to
reward his beloved Eritrea with his ‘defunct’ colonial treaties as basis for the Algiers
Agreement.
Tigray is one of the two foremost ancient provinces of Ethiopia in which the Aksum
plateau is the origin of a literary national Geez culture. And moreover Tigray is the one
state which unfailingly sacrificed its sons for centuries to fight wars against external
aggression in order to protect Ethiopia’s territorial integrity but is now in the grip of the
“Trojan Horses” who boast of reversing its culture and alienating its Ethiopian identity as
their great achievement. And as if such damage is not enough, they are at this very
moment in the business of destroying the Ethiopian State: altering its historic boundaries
by ceding Sovereign territories to Eritrea and making the nation land locked by Eritrea. I
realize that most Ethiopians have given priority to the politics of power- sharing, but
what is power without a country and without a territorial state with secure boundaries
having full access to the to the Sea and international waters. This issue is not about
internal politics which has to do with power, but rather about Ethiopia’s survival, about
having a place in the sun among the free nations of the World.
According to the plan the boundary will soon be demarcated by placing physical markers
and stationing UN Peace Keepers to protect the border. Three parallel lines that will
never meet will soon be created in the heartland of Ethiopia. Eritrean troops, UN Peace
keepers and Ethiopian troops. According to the rulers of Ethiopia this condition will
become a permanent feature of the Ethiopian landscape. The Ethiopian State that the “
Trojan Horses” are creating for us will be at the mercy of their beloved Eritrea separated
by a kind of “Chinese Wall” of ‘Concrete Pillars’ lined up along newly imposed
1,000-km Eritrea-Ethiopia border from Humera to Asseb. And as in ancient China the
Emperors’ Guards continued to watch the Mongols from the “Towers” of the “Chinese
Wall” and so will the “International Praetorian Guard” watch their Ethiopian prisoners
under the politically correct name of Peace Keepers. The Peace Keepers are supposed to
come for a short period but as the history of such cases shows they will remain for ever.
Their task is to prevent the population from moving freely in their beloved homeland and
from free commerce and intercourse with the nations of the World. That imprisoned
Ethiopian nation will have permanent scars all along its imposed border. In the highlands
populations will be evicted from their ancestral homes in order to make room for new
Eritrean settlers and in the low lands of Afar and Adiabo plains, they will be ‘sold out’ to
the Eritreans losing their cherished Ethiopian nationality against the expressed will. This
mindless colonial idea of border is based on easy physical features that the ‘alien’ could
identify without paying any attention to group identity or history or territorial integrity
and will create such tension in these areas that will further reinforce the demand for the
Peace Keepers to stay for ever. One shudders to think of the coming of a such an
Armaegaddon or the “end of Ethiopian history”.
And moreover such an Ethiopian State cannot be said to have real independence so
long as the neighboring State of Eritrea controls its territorial access to the Sea and has an
insatiable desire for access to Ethiopian resources. The government of this so-called
Ethiopian State will of necessity be a puppet of the Eritrean leaders no matter who or
what party leads it. The reason is simple: Eritrea will need Ethiopia’s resources and if the
government of a landlocked Ethiopia does not collaborate with it to provide free access
to these resources in the manner of its choosing as in the period 1991-97, the strategy of
Eritrean rulers will be to destabilize Ethiopia until it accomplishes their goals . For that
purpose Eritrea will support separatist organizations and movements such as the Oromo
Liberation Front, the Somali Liberation Front and others to promote internal political and
economic sabotage in order to make Ethiopia submit to the wishes of Eritrean rulers.
Furthermore, if the Ethiopian state feels necessary to strengthen its defense, both internal
and external, it needs to import arms from abroad at which point Eritrea will inevitably
impose an Arms Embargo on Ethiopia because it controls all the ports. This is why mere
access to the waters of Sea alone is not enough and that ownership of the ports and the
surrounding Coast becomes indispensable for Ethiopia. Such an embargo was imposed by
Italy and France in 1935 when fascist Italy attacked Ethiopia and again in 1998 when
Eritrea attacked Ethiopia. In advocating the Eritrean interest, Meles Zenawi has said that
the ports have nothing but sands which are only good for use by camels. Any one who
does not see that the intent of that deceptive remark was simply to serve the Eritrean
interest by hoodwinking Ethiopian peasants of the fertile highlands who listen to his
radio broadcasts, will have to have his or her head examined.
I owe the above insight to my friend the late Zeru Kihishen who more than any one else
that I know had given careful thought to the survival of Ethiopia following the creation of
an independent Eritrea which owns and controls all the ports along the Red Sea. Hence
forth “Ethiopian independence will exist only in name,” he said. That is why the politics
of power-sharing which has consumed Ethiopians in opposition should be subordinate to
the struggle for the survival of the Ethiopian State and Nation and this goal should
receive our utmost attention because as the saying has it, “time waits for no one”. It is self
evident that the reversal of this evil, once it takes root, will be an uphill battle. The
continuity of history and culture requires that each generation plant the seeds for the
coming generation to reap the fruits. We do ourselves great service to remember the
sacrifice and the achievement which our fathers and our forefathers made as a result of
which our generation lived with dignity, pride and honor.
A synoptic view of the dedication and sacrifice can be appreciated from the list of major
battles against the foreign invaders in successive generations of the past few centuries
which are given as follows. “The Turkish Ethiopian War” where the Ethiopian army
under Tsersa Dengel twice defeated the Turkish invaders led by Ahmed Pasha and his
ally Bahr Negash Yishaq at Debarwa in Hamassien (1578); the battle of Gundet in the
Mereb against the Egyptians under Yoannes (1875), the battle of Gura again against the
Egyptian invaders in Hamassien led under Yohannes (1876), the battle of Dogoali against
the Italian invaders under Alula (1887), the battle of Metema against the invasion by the
Mahdists under Yohannes after their attack of the City of Gondar (1889), the battle of
Adwa against the Italians under Menelik after the enemy invaded Tigre povince (1896),
the battle of Maichew, Tembien and Shire /Endaselassie after the fascist invaders crossed
the Mereb and bombed the City of Adwa (1935); the battle of Ogaden under Mengistu
after the Somali invaders attacked Harer (1978).
These were the historic precedents that
inspired the defense of Ethiopia at the battles of Badema, Tsorena and Zalambassa
against the Eritrean invaders and paradoxically as the record clearly shows against the
personal opposition of Meles, Prime Minister of Ethiopia (1998, 1999). I challenge any
one to name any other country which has been surrounded and attacked continuously for
three and a half centuries without any reason whatsoever except the greed of outsiders to
control its resources motivated by the age-old envy of its natural geopolitical endowment
as the source of the Nile and its access to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.
I have stressed that Ethiopia is a territorial state par excellence. Its history is replete with
acts of heroism to defend the state. A state comprises its territory - surface terrain
which is called Behere (Geez) - with defined and secured territorial borders and the
population that it contains inside it. This is the text book definition of a state. Ethiopia is
a prime example of such a state and nation because historically its population defines its
identity which it calls Ethiopianess by reference to the territory of the country and not by
reference to race, ethnic group or religion like most African countries. That is why the
population always rally against any attack, by any foe, invading it from any corner of the
country under its leader of any ethnic group. The Ethiopians have over the millennia
developed their own distinctive culture and a written language and literature. You can tell
Ethiopians by the way they prepare and eat their food, by the way they construct their
dwellings, the way they dress, and the way they greet strangers. Hence Ethiopia is a
cultural area and its peoples have a cultural identity which is characteristic of a nation.
Thus the notions of territorial state, cultural identity and Ethiopianess are all entwined.
Its ancient boundaries, as Herodotus the Greek historian witnessed it from Ptolemy’s
Egypt, extended as far the Indian Ocean. The historian Alem Eshete whose
manuscript(1992) on the Italian design of carving out Eritrea and the so called colonial
treaties which is the best documentary evidence on the subject that I know, gives in his
recent piece that when Cambyses, King of Persia, sent out his spies with gifts to the king
of Ethiopia, the spies came back with a knowledge of the territory and a message from
the king of Ethiopia which Herodotus puts thus:
“But the Ethiopian king knew the men were spies and answered: ‘the king of Persia
has not sent you with these presents because he puts a value upon being my friend. You
have come to get information about my kingdom; therefore you are liars, and that king of
yours is unjust. Had he any respect for what is right, he would not have coveted any other
kingdom than his own nor made slaves of people who have done him no wrong. So take
him this bow, and tell him that the king of Ethiopia has some advice to give him: when
the Persians can draw a bow of this size thus easily, then let him raise an army of superior
strength and invade the long-lived Ethiopians” ( BOOK THREE page 162, Herodotus)
This statement of the Ethiopian king tells the event of his time and in that very statement
foretold the future course of Ethiopian history. Typically, the enemy sends out spies,
seeks to recruit local allies against the Ethiopian state and finally invades, but Ethiopia
hits back and drives out the enemy to where he came from. This is the consistent pattern
in Ethiopian history. The present crises is an exception because Ethiopia has faced that no
country has ever faced before: it is ruled by an outside agent.
I wish to give a picture where Ethiopia now stands in the context of its recent past.
During the past one hundred years the territorial configuration of the Ethiopian State has
passed three stages which I would characterize as the Menelik State (1896-1946) , the
Haile Selassie State (1952-1991), and the Meles State (1991----? ). The following maps*
show these three states in the context in which they were created. The territorial
boundaries of the Menilik State were formed during the colonial partition of Africa. The
map prepared by Ian Brownlie from his book on African Boundaries accurately depicts it
in the context of the African colonization story. Following the Berlin Conference Africa
was parceled out by the colonial powers. However, Ethiopian independence survived
after the Battle of Adwa despite its loss of its Coastal territories to Italy, France and Great
Britain.
The end of the Second World War brought about a new wave which reversed the
European policy of colonialism conceived at the Berlin Conference. African liberation
was supported by the Allies during which time Eritrea freely joined Ethiopia. Ethiopian
ancient Red Sea boundaries were restored and Ethiopia regained full access to its Red Sea
Coast. This was made possible by the Italian Peace Treaty of 1947 which renounced all
rights to its former colony and the General Assembly Resolution which created the
sovereignty of Ethiopia over its former territories ushered in the period of restoration of
its Coastal territorial boundaries under Emperor Haile Selassie . This State is depicted in
a post-colonial map of African Boundaries again by Ian Brownle as it stood in 1978 . As
the second map by Ian Brownlie clearly shows, Ethiopian Sovereignty meant that the
colonial boundaries between Ethiopia and Eritrea were abolished. This post-war State I
would characterize as the Haile Selassie State which lasted from 1952 to 1991 until the
fall of the Military Junta.
Since then Ethiopia is ruled by the EPDRF/TPLF. The war with Eritrea ending up in the
Algiers Agreement of 12 December 2000 marks the birth of a new Ethiopian State
permanently landlocked by a bi-lateral Treaty with Eritrea with new borders demarcated
by Concrete Pillars and enforced by UN Peace Keepers. I would characterize this State as
the Meles State. The third map in color marked with icons of pillars and peacekeepers
vividly depicts the third territorial configuration which, short of a miracle, is the final
shape of the so-called the new State of Ethiopia. This state is to be compared with the
Menelik State on the one hand and contrasted with the Haile Selassie State on the other.
The external policy environments of the European powers predicating the
formation of the Menelik and Haile Selassie States are respectively depicted in the
respective African Boundary maps as the colonization of the 19th century following the
Berlin Conference of the European powers, and the decolonization of Africa after the
victory of the Allied Powers following the Second World War. This comparison and
contrast bring out in sharp relief that the Meles State is being formed in the absence of an
external global or African or regional factor which causes the Ethiopian historical and
Coastal territories to be either colonized as in the 19th century or to cause the reversal of
the Haile Selassie State formed in the aftermath of the Second World War.
In fact the
Meles state is being formed in the Post-Cold War period where no exogenous policy
environment is a decisive factor. So far as Eritrea is concerned, Ethiopia had decisively
won the War. Moreover, it could not have lost the territories by peaceful means because
it has the legal and historical rights to these territories. Meles Zenawi’s declaration that
the colonial treaties are legal and binding does not wipe out the facts of history that they
were in fact abolished. Meles and Meles alone is responsible for Ethiopia’s predicament and
no one should blame the Eritreans.
I present this picture of the Ethiopian State lest there are people who have not heard or
have not seen what Meles Zenawi had planned for years and had finally succeeded in
achieving. He achieved in creating the Independence of his beloved Eritrea for which he
fought for years, and as every Tigrayan mother knows by sheding the blood of Tigrayan
youths in the battle fields of Eritrea against the Ethiopian army and in the Afar region
against the Afar fighters who refused to lose their Ethiopian identity and nationality, and
moreover by eliminating any one in Tigrai who opposed his Eritrean Policy of Session.
And as if all that mercenary role were not enough, he has now signed a bilateral agreement
with Eritrea (i.e. Algiers Agreement) which other nations will recognize it to be a national
commitment by default, surrendering the historic territories of the Afar and Tigray
regions of Ethiopia - historically outside Eritrea proper ie the highlands of Hamassien
Seraye and Akeleguazai.
His ambition knows no limits in that he has finally created a
colonialist State of Eritrea in the proper sense of the term where the goal is the
acquisition of territory for Eritrean settlement by taking away the lands of the local
populations, and by landlocking Ethiopia in order to establish a strategic control over it
by Eritrea in the political, economic, trade, defense and foreign policy spheres so that
hence forth any regime of Ethiopia will be a Puppet Regime of Eritrea. Can any one deny
that this is an incredible, and bold achievement, unique of its kind in world history by an
enemy who operates from within in utter contempt of the people which he rules? That is
why all concerned patriotic Ethiopians are urging that this is not the time to “stand and
stare” but to act by every available means possible to stop this menace before it devours
all of us.
*The maps would be posted when our technical problems are fixed. - Ed.
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