One of Africa’s longest running conflicts has officially ended.
On July 9th, 2018 the east african nations of Ethiopia and Eritrea declared the end of
their state of war and ushered in a new era of “peace and friendship”.
It was a decades-long conflict that had a huge human cost -- as it also exacerbated
a famine in the 1980s that claimed the lives of over 1 million people.
The declaration of peace wasn’t just symbolic either, it had immediate real life consequences
for people on both sides of the border.
Diplomatic relations were restored, flights between the countries resumed,and even phone
lines opened up allowing people in each country to call each other for the first time in two
decades.
I’m Judah, this is NowThis World, and in this episode we’re going to explore the
complicated history between these two countries and what led to the end of this conflict.
First, let’s take a look back in history.
In 1890, Eritrea was colonized by the Italian empire.
Over the next few decades, fascist italian forces used the territory as a launching point
to attack the Ethiopian empire.
First in 1895, when they faced defeat, Then again successfully in 1935.
Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Italian Somaliland were combined and became Italian East Africa.
But towards the end of World War 2, in 1941, Ethiopian and British forces ended the Italian
occupation over the area.
This move reestablished the Ethiopian empire, while Eritrea was colonized and controlled
by the British.
In 1950s, the United Nations federated, or combined the two, making Eritrea an autonomous
region within Ethiopia.
But Haile Selassie, Ethiopia’s emperor, had different plans for the region.
He ignored UN and unilaterally annexed Eritrea in 1962.
The move made Eritrea an official province within Ethiopia and made all Eritrean citizens
Ethiopian citizens.
The annexation sparked a decades-long fight for between Ethiopian forces and Eritrean
separatist groups.
As Ethiopia became preoccupied with fighting off the rebellion in Eritrea where thousands
of people were forcibly displaced, it also faced a severe famine in the 1980s that would
go on to claim the lives of an estimated 1 million people.
The horrendous images from Ethiopia shocked the world, as it easily became one of the
worst humanitarian disasters of the 20th century.
A few years after this mass suffering, The Eritrean People's Liberation Front, or EPLF,
led by Issaias Afwerki, went on to win the war for independence from Ethiopia in 1991.
And in 1993, Eritreans overwhelmingly passed a referendum for independence and shortly
after joined the United Nations as a member state.
After independence, tension between the two state’s eased for a short time.
Things were so good that Eritrean president even told an Ethiopian newspaper in 1996 that
borders between the two nations were “meaningless.”
But then things took a drastically different direction, when tensions over a disputed area
of land culminated in outright military conflict.
In May 1998, Eritrean troops entered the heavily contested town of Badme.
Shortly after, the Ethiopian army launched an attack on the Eritrean forces.
The fighting left an estimated 80,000 people dead over the course of two years.
In June 2000 both countries signed “The Algiers Accords,” a peace agreement that
ended active hostilities, but the two remained at odds over Badme.
The agreement established a “neutral boundary commision” to determine the borders between
the two countries.
But in April 2002, when the commission determined the town of Badme belonged to Eritrea, Ethiopia
rejected the decision.
This initiated a stalemate that followed for nearly two decades.
But then things very recently shifted in a major way.
In April 2018, Abiy Ahmed came to power in Ethiopia.
The 41-year-old is one of Africa’s youngest leaders and has made a few reforms since gaining
power.
He pardoned political prisoners, and rolled back censorship of over 200 websites, blogs
and television stations.
But the most shocking of them all, was Ahmed’s announcement that he would “fully accept
and implement” the 2000 Peace Treaty with Eritrea, officially ending a war that he had
even fought in himself.
And Eritrea was on board.
On July 9th, 2018 in Eritrea’s capital Asmara, the two leaders released a joint statement
saying they were “Determined to close this very costly chapter, which also had a detrimental
role in the Horn of Africa, and to make up for lost opportunities and create even bigger
golden opportunities for their peoples;”
Some Ethiopians have even compared this opening of relations to the falling of the Berlin
wall.
That’s because since independence, Eritrea has become an increasingly isolated and totalitarian
state under Afwerki’s regime, which has been in place since 1993.
His government’s policies of indefinite military service - which some blame on the
20-year war with Ethiopia, the cracking down on any and all political opposition, and the
widespread violation of human rights had created a mass exodus of young Eritreans during the
height of the European migration crisis.
And Ethiopia has faced a number of human rights issues at home itself.
According to Human Rights watch, just since 2015 over 1,000 people were killed and tens
of thousands more detained for protesting government policies.
And there remains extensive restrictions on freedom of expression and press freedom in
the country.
But some human rights groups have expressed that they are hopeful that this new era of
peace, will lead to human rights reforms in both countries.
So despite it taking quite some time to achieve, this latest diplomatic breakthrough is certainly
something worth celebrating.