May 30, 2000
The
Dilemma of the Horn:
Or how to kill thousands of Africans without firing
a shot
THE
SENSELESS WAR
Where
is the world's largest conventional war? Sierra
Leone? It's neither large nor conventional. Iraq?
Despite the continued genocide
carried out in our name, the war is not even official. The
Congo, the Sudan?
Right continent, wrong wars. The largest
conventional war being fought today is between Ethiopia
and Eritrea in East Africa. At least to some extent, it is our
fault.
THE
STATE OF PLAY
At
the moment, the
Ethiopians are winning. By the time this is published there
may even be a formal
ceasefire. The Eritreans will probably surrender to Ethiopia
the disputed villages on the Badme
strip, local predominance in the Horn of Africa and the ability
for Ethiopia to use Eritrea's
ports for trade. The Ethiopians are winning with "human
waves" of conscripts to overwhelm the military of Eritrea with
its smaller population. After two years, it seems to have worked,
with the trench warfare reminiscent of the First World War being
replaced with rapid Ethiopian
advances into Eritrean territory. The advance is so successful
that the Eritreans are suing for peace.
CHOOSE
YOUR VILLAIN
It
is hard
to see which side is the heroic one in this conflict. Eritrea
while being small
and plucky, is in fact a dictatorship
where no
election has been allowed since independence in 1993. The occupation
of the Badme strip was initiated by them, and their refusal
to negotiate until now has been instrumental
in continuing the war (more of that later). The Eritreans have
also been remarkably good at picking fights with other neighbours,
such as the Yemen
and Sudan,
and they ruthlessly used their lock
on landlocked Ethiopia's trade to stunt her economy.
The Ethiopians on the other hand are not angels either. Although
they have held an election in the last month, it has been dogged
by accusations
of fraud – although to be fair the very fact that these
accusations can both be made and reported on in Ethiopia says something.
The expulsion
of ethnic Eritreans in Ethiopia, could not be said to live up
to Western standards (except for Roosevelt and the Japanese). Ethiopia
has shown what can only be described as callousness towards her
own population, with the use of large "human
waves" to overcome the well entrenched Eritreans, with the predictable
results. The other callousness shown by the Ethiopian authorities
has been the refusal
to use Eritrean ports to import relief for the famine
in southern Ethiopia. The fact is that neither side is particularly
attractive, and in an area with no real strategic import for the
West there is no reason for us to fight for either side. And indeed
we have not been, so why have I written about this fight?
WHY
SO LONG?
It
is fairly clear that Eritrea would not win a long drawn out war
with a country with fifteen
times the amount of people. Any long drawn out border war, fought
in Ethiopian or disputed territory, would of necessity turn on who
had the most resources and men. Ethiopia would be bound to win a
war on those terms, except if she intended to occupy Eritrea, which
she
does not seem to. So why is Eritrea being so obstinate, insisting
until recently on holding on to her early gains?
WAITING
FOR BILLO
The
fact is that both sides, particularly Eritrea, have been angling
for Western support. And why ever not? The West has interfered in
other places where there is no clear moral winner, and no real strategic
interest. The old idea that Kosovo
would be different from Africa because
Kosovan Albanians are white has been disproved with the intervention
in next door Somalia
and the recent
intervention in Sierra Leone. The Eritreans have constantly
been calling for Western intervention, with expatriates demonstrating
in European capitals and with Eritrean
radio calling for Western help. Eritrean
writers have compared the Ethiopian regime to Slobodan Milosovic
(or Mellesovic, a play on the Ethiopian President's name) with the
obvious allusions. They have also been heartened by the reassurance
of Susan
Rice, the State Department Official, that America would come
down on Ethiopia "like
a ton of bricks." If Eritrea could attract Western sympathy
and support, then the balance of power in the war would be reversed,
with the resources of the West facing Ethiopia. This hope for intervention
has been fueled by an opinion
piece by Benjamin Gilman in the Washington Post (chargeable
to view it), taking Eritrea's side, obviously not a move that would
make peace easier.
OUR
ROLE
The
reason I have been writing on this benighted war is that we need
to expose the reason for its continuation. The very
prospect of Western intervention in all corners of the world
keeps these wars going. Instead of local balances of power, and
the acceptance of limits, each power that can plausibly claim to
either be smaller or more
democratic, can hope for outside interference. This means that
the normal equilibriums are overturned. The futility of a long drawn
out war is overlooked because there is a prospect, no matter how
slight that the US air force will come in. The very prospect
of intervention lengthens Africa's misery. It may be ironic that
intervention harms the peace which it is supposed to guarantee,
just as aid entrenches the poverty it is meant to alleviate, but
this does not stop the tragedy.
If
you want to get involved, the exAfrica
forum is dedicated to getting the West, particularly Britain,
out of Africa, come
and join. We
in the West are responsible for at least some of this mess,
and will continue to be responsible while there is a single British
or American troop in Africa.
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