Eritrea-Ethiopia War
| date | May 6, 1998 to June 18, 2000 |
|---|---|
| place | Ethiopian-Eritrean border area |
| output | Ethiopian victory |
| Peace treaty | July 9, 2018 |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
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The war between Ethiopia and Eritrea lasted from May 6, 1998 to June 18, 2000 and ended with the Ethiopian occupation of the disputed territories. The subsequent armistice was agreed in the Algiers Agreement .
causes
Eritrea became an Italian colony at the end of the 19th century , while Ethiopia ( Abyssinia Empire ) was able to defend its independence. At this time, border treaties were concluded between the ruling Italian colonial power in Eritrea and Ethiopia, which would later have an impact on the border conflict. After the end of the Second World War , Eritrea formed a confederation with Ethiopia from 1952 . The previously assured self-government within Ethiopia was increasingly restricted and completely abolished in 1961. Especially from 1974, under the Marxist-Leninist Derg military government under Mengistu Haile Mariam , armed resistance movements formed in Eritrea as well as in other regions of Ethiopia, such as in the neighboring Tigray . The fight against the common enemy united the Ethiopian and Eritrean rebels, who developed military and political cooperation. Together, the rebels succeeded in overthrowing the Derg regime in 1991.
After a thirty-year war of independence, Eritrea finally achieved peaceful independence from Ethiopia in 1993, although Ethiopia thereby lost its direct access to the sea and became a landlocked country . Economically, both states initially tried to work closely together. Both countries signed a cooperation agreement in which they agreed on duty-free trade. In addition, Eritrea kept the Ethiopian currency Birr and formed a monetary union with Ethiopia. To compensate for the loss of sea access, the Eritrean city of Assab was declared a free port , through which Ethiopia could import its goods duty-free, and the use of the refinery in Assab was also granted to Ethiopia in exchange for 30% of Ethiopian oil .
With the independence of Eritrea, however, the first border disputes began. The border was negotiated in 1900, 1902 and 1908 between Great Britain , the Kingdom of Italy and the Empire of Abyssinia . Ethiopia argued, however, that these negotiation results had never been implemented and that some areas were administered by Ethiopia afterwards and thus did not belong to the Italian colony of Eritrea. When Eritrea finally also strived for greater economic independence, the conflict increased. At the end of 1996, Eritrea increased the usage fees for the Assab refinery by 10%, whereupon Ethiopia stopped producing its own oil and imported finished petrochemical products instead. As a result, Eritrea had to close its unprofitable refinery and from now on meet its demand for petroleum products through imports. In November 1997 Eritrea introduced its own currency, the Nakfa , thereby ending the monetary union with Ethiopia. Eritrea wanted to continue to use the birr banknotes provided by the Ethiopian central bank, whereupon Ethiopia reacted by introducing new birr notes and abolished all trading privileges of Eritrea.
The conflict
Due to the economic disputes, the disputes about the unresolved demarcation increased again. In July 1997, Ethiopian units occupied areas around the city of Adi Murug and replaced the local administration with an Ethiopian administration. As a result, the two countries decided to form a border commission, but this did not prevent the war. On May 8, 1998, an exchange of fire between units of Ethiopia and Eritrea resulted in deaths on both sides. Which side began the exchange of fire is still unclear. As a result, on May 12, 1998, Eritrean units occupied the approximately 400 km² Yirga triangle in the border area. Ethiopia demanded the immediate withdrawal of Eritrea and responded by sending military units into the region. In addition, a total economic boycott was imposed on Eritrea, whereupon Eritrea closed the ports of Massawa and Assab to Ethiopia, through which Ethiopia conducted two thirds of its foreign trade.
In response to the economic boycott, Eritrea ordered the mobilization of its army. Shortly afterwards, Eritrean units occupied other areas near the border. The first air raids took place on June 5th. Ethiopia bombed the airport of the Eritrean capital Asmara and Eritrea the Ethiopian city Mekele , provincial capital of the Tigray region . Meanwhile, fierce fighting over the disputed areas broke out on the ground as well. The then US President Bill Clinton finally brokered the cessation of the air raids on June 15, 1998. The fighting on the ground also subsided for the time being, as the rainy season set in and hindered and made troop movements difficult.
During this phase of the war, both states armed themselves considerably. The troop strength of Eritrea quadrupled to 200,000 men and the troop strength of Ethiopia was more than doubled to 300,000 men. The arms expenditures of both countries between May 1998 and February 1999 amounted to an estimated 600 million US dollars, a very high sum since Ethiopia and Eritrea were among the poorest countries in the world. Ethiopia also expelled around 70,000 Eritrean citizens living in Ethiopia and confiscated their property. Ethiopia accused Eritrea of having also expelled Ethiopian citizens; However, mediators from the Organization for African Unity (OAU) could not confirm this.
After seven months the war escalated again. Between February and March 1999 in particular, there were thousands of deaths in border battles. When the Eritrean units finally had to withdraw from the city of Badme at the end of February from the overwhelming power of Ethiopia , the Eritrean President Isayas Afewerki was ready to accept an OAU peace plan, which he had strictly rejected shortly before. Now, however, Ethiopia refused to accept the peace plan. In April, Ethiopia began bombing the Eritrean port cities of Massawa and Assab, breaking the June 1998 treaty.
It was not until the rainy season from July to September that the fighting subsided and gave the OAU mediators renewed hope of a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Eritrea agreed to the OAU's plan, but Ethiopian President Meles Zenawi resisted it again and finally rejected the plan in December 1999. Even so, there were only occasional exchanges of fire until May of the following year. On May 12, 2000, the Ethiopian army launched a major offensive and occupied all the disputed areas within two weeks. On May 26, 2000, both sides declared their agreement to a ceasefire . Nonetheless, the artillery battles and Ethiopian air strikes continued with undiminished violence in the days that followed. Even after the Ethiopian President declared the end of all fighting on May 31, 2000 and the peace negotiations of the OAU in Algiers began, the fighting did not end. The fighting did not end until the ceasefire agreement was signed by the foreign ministers of both countries on June 18, 2000.
UN mediation and border regulation
In the ceasefire agreement it was agreed that the 4,000-strong UN contingent UNMEE would monitor the withdrawal of the armed forces to positions before the war. In addition, a temporary security zone was established between the two states and a border commission was set up to clarify the exact course of the border. On April 13, 2002, the EEBC border commission, acting as a mediator, regulated the course of the border line on the basis of the colonial treaties already mentioned, "final and binding". The disputed area around the city of Badme was awarded to Eritrea, which led Ethiopia to protest and demand a correction of the arbitration award. The planned implementation of the demarcation of the border could therefore not be carried out at first. All UN troops that had been deployed to maintain peace were hindered in their work by Eritrea in protest against the Ethiopian blockade and then withdrew following a resolution of the UN Security Council on July 30, 2008. The two states thus continued to be hostile and heavily armed.
On December 21, 2005, the international commission set up as part of the UN peace effort in The Hague concluded that Eritrea had started the war. The attack on Eritrea could not be judged as legitimate self-defense, as the Eritrean government had argued. Eritrea is therefore obliged under international law to compensate Ethiopia for the damage it suffered.
Despite the ceasefire, Eritrean-Ethiopian relations remained tense, so that some observers feared another war. Sporadically, there were several firefights with fatalities at the border. Both states also continued their disputes as a "proxy war" in Somalia by supporting warring parties in the Somali civil war .
On June 5, 2018, the Ethiopian government declared that it was ready to accept the provisions of the 2002 border agreement and would implement them. This also includes the handover of the controversial place Badme to Eritrea. On July 8, 2018, Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced that Ethiopia and Eritrea would resume diplomatic relations. At the same time a peace treaty was concluded between the two countries. Regular air traffic between the two capitals, which had been interrupted for twenty years, was resumed on July 18, 2018. Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for his reconciliation policy .
Casualty numbers
The number of victims of the war is unclear: the figures and estimates range between 19,000 victims on the Eritrean and 34,000 on the Ethiopian side, up to around 150,000 on both sides. The number of 19,000 Eritrean victims is based on government figures; Ethiopia has not published any information about its own losses. In addition, around one million Eritreans became refugees, which is roughly a third of the Eritrean population. Ethiopia puts the number of Ethiopian refugees at 350,000. Both states were thrown far behind in their economic development by the war and armaments spending. The respective power elites around Meles Zenawi and Isayas Afewerki, however, were strengthened in their positions by a wave of nationalism .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Sascha A. Kienzle: Causes for the Eritrean-Ethiopian border conflict. A historical-political analysis. Tönning 2010, ISBN 978-3-86247-081-5 .
- ^ Damian Zane: Ethiopia regrets Badme ruling. BBC News, April 3, 2003, accessed June 6, 2018 .
- ↑ UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea is withdrawn. unmissions.org, July 30, 2008, accessed June 6, 2018 .
- ^ Eritrea was broke law in border. BBC News, December 21, 2005, accessed June 6, 2018 .
- ↑ Ethiopia and Eritrea blame each other for border clash. BBC News, June 12, 2016, accessed June 7, 2018 .
- ↑ Eritrea profile - timeline. BBC News, May 8, 2018, accessed June 8, 2018 .
- ↑ Ethiopia 'accepts peace deal' to end Eritrea border war. BBC News, June 5, 2018, accessed June 5, 2018 .
- ^ After a long border war: Ethiopia and Eritrea establish diplomatic relations. In: FAZ. July 8, 2018, accessed July 8, 2018 .
- ↑ Ethiopia and Eritrea make peace. Time online from July 9, 2018
- ↑ First flight connection in twenty years online from July 19, 2018
- ↑ Eritrea reveals the human cost of war. on: news.bbc.co.uk , June 20, 2001.
Web links
- Ethiopia celebrates victory over Eritrea. In: The world. March 1, 1999.
- Ethiopia and Eritrea sign armistice. In: Handelsblatt. June 18, 2000.