Most of Africa’s conflicts are interminable
affairs, civil
or tribal wars lasting decades and
involving non-state actors. They’re hard to bring to a
close.
One of Africa’s few wars between sovereign
states, on the
other hand, recently ended.
The
leaders of
Ethiopia and Eritrea on July 9 signed a “joint declaration of
peace and
friendship,” a day after a summit in Asmara, the Eritrean
capital, between
Eritrean President
Isaias Afwerki and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia.
Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in
1993 after a
30-year guerrilla war, but their border remained contested and
about 80,000
people died in a 1998-2000 border war.
A peace agreement known as the Algiers accord
was signed in
2000. It created an independent, impartial body, known as the
Ethiopian-Eritrean Boundary Commission, to determine the
boundary, but Ethiopia
balked at implementing the deal.
Ethiopia has now agreed to implement the
ruling that awarded
the key town of Badme to Eritrea.
Isaias visited Addis Ababa July 14. The two
leaders
announced that they would resume airline and telephone services
and cross-border
trade, and reopen their embassies.
Ethiopia, which has been a landlocked nation
since Eritrea
achieved independence, needs the Eritrean port of Assab for
access to the Red
Sea. Until 1998, it used Assab for two-thirds of its trade with
the world.
In addition, the two countries agreed to
participate in the
development of other ports. This will reduce Ethiopia’s
dependence on the port
of Djibouti, which has been its main gateway
for trade.
Africa’s second most populous state, with 102
million
people, Ethiopia has East Africa’s largest economy and is a
regional power.
It has the largest army in the region and the
continent’s
fastest-growing economy, with a growth rate expected to be 8.5
per cent this
year.
Abiy, who became Ethiopia’s prime minister in
April, is the
first member of the Oromo ethnic group, which makes up more than
a third of
Ethiopia’s population of more than 102 million, to lead the
government.
They have suffered repression in the past and
were at the
center of protests demanding more economic opportunities and
greater freedom of
expression.
The outgoing Ethiopian leader, Hailemariam
Desaleg of the
small Welayta ethnic group, who number only 2.3 per cent of the
country’s people,
resigned in February.
Deadly clashes for more than two years had
left at least 700
people dead. Abiy lifted a state of emergency and freed
political prisoners.
Both men are members of the Ethiopian
People’s RevolutionaryDemocratic Front that has ruled the country since overthrowing
an Amhara-led Marxist-Leninist
Derg regime in 1991.
Historically, the Amhara people, numbering 27
per cent, were
the country’s governing force. Emperor Haile Selasssie, deposed
in 1974, was Amhara,
as was Mengistu Haile Mariam, the country’s dictator until 1991.
The minority Tigrayans, though numbering just
6.1 per cent
of the population, have controlled the political and economic
life of Ethiopia since
then. The late Meles
Zenawi, the first
prime minister of a post-Derg Ethiopia, was Tigrayan.
Abiy’s ethnicity has been crucial in laying
the ground for
reconciliation with Eritrea.
The repressive Eritrean government,
meanwhile, has long been
involved in human rights abuses, and denies rights based on
political opinion
and religion.
It subjects its citizens to “national
service” that traps
conscripts for well over a decade and in some cases, forever.
About 12 per cent
of Eritrea’s five million people have fled the country.
Will this peace deal result in social and
political
liberalization there?
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