Volume 2, Number 45
September 1997
Editors: Martha Honey (IPS) and Tom Barry (IRC)
Written by Dan Connell, an independent research journalist and
development
consultant based in Gloucester, MA.
Key Points
* The U.S.-sponsored federation between Ethiopia and Eritrea triggered a
30-year
war when Ethiopia annexed the strategic Red Sea territory.
* Eritrean liberation forces, fighting with little outside help,
defeated
successive U.S.- and Soviet- backed Ethiopian regimes to win
independence in
1993.
* Abandoned after the cold war, Eritrea was born in ruins, with almost
85% of
its three million people surviving on donated relief
Eritrea's independence from Ethiopia became official in May 1993,
through a
United Nations- monitored referendum in which 99.8% of the voters opted
for
sovereignty. The former Italian colony had been linked to Ethiopia in
1952 when
the U.S., looking for ways to strengthen its original African ally in
Addis
Ababa and determined to set up military bases in Eritrea, imposed a
UN-sponsored
federation. Ten years later, Ethiopia dissolved the pact (again with
U.S.
backing) and forcibly annexed the strategic Red Sea territory, prompting
Eritrean nationalists to launch an armed struggle for independence. Over
the
next 30 years, Eritrea became a cold war battlefield with dizzying
political
turnabouts.
Ethiopia was a linchpin of Washington's efforts to control sub-Saharan
Africa
starting in the 1940s when the rest of the continent was still under
European
rule. Following World War II, U.S. advisers designed Ethiopia's entire
infrastructure, from the Western-style parliament and the education
system to
the armed forces. From 1952 to 1976, more than of all U.S. aid to Africa
went to
Ethiopia, including the first supersonic jet fighters on the continent.
In
exchange, Ethiopia provided troops to U.S.-led military operations in
Korea and
the Congo. Ethiopia also granted basing rights for the U.S. navy in the
Eritrean
port of Massawa and for the National Security Agency in the Eritrean
capital,
Asmara, to establish the largest overseas spy facility in the world.
When the
Eritrea war heated up in the 1960s, the U.S. sent Special Forces units
to train
Ethiopians in the latest counterinsurgency techniques. Israel also sent
advisers
and arms.
In 1974, an Ethiopian military committee known as the Derg overthrew the
82-
year-old, pro-Western Emperor Haile Selassie. Two years later the Derg
declared
Ethiopia "socialist," broke relations with Washington, and realigned the
country
with Moscow. The Soviets promptly pumped in over $11 billion in arms,
along with
high-level military advisers. The U.S. then shifted to a strategy of
encirclement, arming Ethiopia's neighbors (Somalia, Sudan, and Kenya)
and
developing a new base on the Indian Ocean atoll of Diego Garcia. Soviet
aid
enabled Ethiopia to reoccupy Eritrea's major towns, but the war ground
to a
stalemate. It was punctuated by bloody battles in which tens of
thousands
perished on both sides until 1988, when the Eritreans, now led by the
Eritrean
People's Liberation Front (EPLF), regained the offensive.
In May 1991 the EPLF routed the Ethiopian army near Asmara, winning the
war with
almost no outside help. Simultaneously it helped opposition forces in
Ethiopia
topple the regime there. After a two-year cooling-off period, the
Eritreans
voted to establish their own state. With the cold war over, the Horn of
Africa
lost much of its strategic significance, and the U.S. largely abandoned
its one-
time interests there. The war left Eritrea in ruins, however. Water and
sewage
systems in the towns barely functioned. The few asphalt roads were in
shambles.
Port facilities were badly damaged. The 220-mile rail system had been
dismantled, its iron rails used to make bunkers. Upon independence in
1993, the
country's per capita income was less than $150, compared to $330 for
sub-Saharan
Africa as a whole. Since then, with minimal foreign aid or influence,
the
Eritreans have been constructing the physical and political
infrastructure of a
new country. In 1998, under a newly adopted constitution, they will hold
national elections and complete the postwar transition.
In some respects the Eritreans have an advantage by starting with so
little: no
capital (but no crime or corruption to speak of), no debts, and little
ideological baggage. At independence, Ethiopia absorbed Eritrea's
financial
liabilities, and the new country carries no political obligations
Problems With Current U.S. Policy
Key Problems
* Despite professing to support self-reliance, the U.S. still resists
Eritrea's
efforts to define its own policies.
*The U.S. and its European allies are critical of a reform that
nationalizes
urban and rural land, while guaranteeing "use rights" to Eritreans,
rather than
privatizing it outright.
* Development capital and foreign investment are proving hard to
attract,
despite the almost complete absence of corruption or crime in the
country.
The U.S., having orchestrated Eritrea's initial link to Ethiopia and
then
backing its annexation, bears major responsibility for the bitter war
that
followed. Once Moscow displaced Washington in Addis Ababa in 1977, the
U.S.,
mistrusting the Eritrean movement's independent-left politics, shifted
to a
policy of Soviet containment. This involved arming pro-Western states
surrounding Ethiopia while ignoring the continued heavy fighting in
Eritrea-a
policy described by then-Deputy Secretary of State for African Affairs
Chester
Crocker as the pursuit of "negative strategic interests."
Since Eritrea's hard-won independence, the U.S. has sent mixed signals.
As the
recent product of a successful liberation struggle with overwhelming
popular
support, the Eritrean government continues to take a leading role in
economic
construction and all other aspects of national life. So far there is
only one
political party (though it is organizationally and financially separate
from the
state), the media is government-controlled, and activities by both
domestic and
foreign NGOs are restricted. These policies conflict directly with
Washington's
agenda of unregulated markets and multiparty politics.
One of the first U.S. acts after Eritrea's independence was to deliver a
list of
businesses and government departments to be immediately privatized. When
the
Eritrean government rebuffed these demands, it received no development
assistance in 1992. Later, however, the U.S. provided financial
assistance for
the constitution commission, for demobilization of former combatants,
and for
expansion of the health care system. Currently, the Pentagon provides
various
services to Eritrea, including de- mining assistance and support for
professionalizing the armed forces. State Department officials, however,
voice
impatience with the pace of economic and political "liberalization."
Economic
development assistance-averaging less than $10 million per year-has been
extremely modest.
For its part, the Eritrean government insists it must first resuscitate
war-
damaged industries in order to sell them at better-than-bargain-basement
rates.
It also cites the highly participatory process under way in villages and
neighborhoods, where people are choosing leaders in fiercely contested
local
elections, as evidence of a long-range commitment to real
democratization.
The Eritreans are constructing their state from scratch, doing it much
as they
won their sovereignty- through their own efforts and on their own terms.
In 1995
the Asmara government nationalized urban and rural land, while
guaranteeing "use
rights" to all Eritreans, despite a strong U.S. preference for outright
privatization. Next, it launched a National Service program requiring
women and
men over 18 to undergo six months of military training plus a year
working on
reconstruction projects. This program aims to compensate for Eritrea's
lack of
capital and to reduce dependence on foreign aid, while welding together
an
ethnically diverse society, half Christian and half Muslim, representing
nine
ethnic groups. It also places women and men in conditions of relative
gender
equality for 18 months, like their experience on the liberation front
during the
war years.
Food aid has been a contentious issue. In 1996 the government ended all
free
distribution of food. Henceforth, it announced-over U.S. and European
opposition-that it would sell donated grain on the domestic market at
subsidized
rates (rather than giving it away) and then use the proceeds to
underwrite a
public works campaign for poor people. Those unable to work-whether
disabled,
sick or elderly- would receive cash grants; all others would be paid in
cash for
working on projects like road repair, reforestation, or dambuilding.
Thus, the
government proposed to shift from a relief-based economy to one in which
everyone who could work was guaranteed a job-by the state.
Washington and other food donors balked at losing control over the
distribution
of grain shipments within Eritrea. They also insisted that subsidies
should be
eliminated and that donated grain must be resold at world market prices.
When
the Asmara government refused, the U.S. withheld grain aid, forcing the
cash-
strapped Eritrean government to purchase food on the open market and to
postpone
its jobs program. Late in 1996, with Eritrean grain supplies running
short, the
U.S. agreed to permit the sale of donated grain as proposed by the
Eritreans,
rather than take the blame for renewed hunger, though European donors
continued
to oppose the program.
There has been some private foreign investment by both U.S. and other
firms
seeking joint ventures in oil and gold exploration, but Eritrea's weak
infrastructure and its inadequate energy supplies are obstacles to
growth. North
American and European NGOs have also given modest assistance, but new
restrictions limit their role to providing training and to funding
Eritrean
state-run operations or social movements like the national women's
union, the
trade unions, or the youth union. Some, like New York-based Catholic
Relief
Services, are closing programs rather than accept controls Eritrea deems
necessary to protect its sovereignty; others, like Boston-based
Grassroots
International, which has always worked through local counterparts, are
unaffected.
Toward a New Foreign Policy
Key Recommendations
* U.S. policy in the Horn of Africa has been inconsistent for more than
two
decades; it needs to be clarified and rearticulated to reflect the new
realities
in the region.
* The U.S. should support Eritrea's bottom-up economic and political
development
strategy without trying to control it.
* Washington should give material and political support to the new
regional
initiatives aimed at stabilizing the strife-torn region.
U.S. policy in the Horn of Africa was driven for decades by cold war
imperatives. As superpower allegiances shifted, billions of dollars in
heavy
arms flowed to corrupt autocrats like Haile Selassie in Ethiopia, Siad
Barre in
Somalia, and Jaafar el-Nimeiri in Sudan. This helped to sink the
resource-rich
region into a morass of war, migration, poverty, and horrific famine.
After decades of pouring arms into the region, future U.S. policy toward
Eritrea
should be based upon a sustained commitment to reconstruction. During
their
liberation struggle, the Eritreans demonstrated the capacity to design
and
implement their own relief and development programs, and the country has
the
potential to become a model of efficient, self-reliant development.
Washington
should facilitate Asmara's efforts through direct, bilateral
government-to-
government assistance to rebuild and develop the country's roads,
bridges,
railroads, communications, and power-generation capacity.
The U.S. practice of channeling a high proportion of its aid through
private
U.S. organizations is not appropriate in Eritrea at this time. Instead,
the U.S.
should consider providing grants to key ministries responsible for
agriculture,
industry, mines, and marine resources and should support promising
government
initiatives in such areas as education and public health.
The U.S. often tends to identify democracy with simply holding
multiparty
elections. The recent record of such elections in African countries is
decidedly
mixed, and, in any case, such processes do not address the questions of
how to
avoid ethnic fragmentation and how to foster democratic participation by
rural
Africans. The key challenge is to bring nonliterate, rural majorities
from
diverse communities into a national political process. Eritrea is one of
several
African states experimenting with building new forms of bottom-up
democracy. Its
leaders argue that the development of a national political culture
including
formerly disenfranchised citizens-peasant farmers, women, ethnic
minorities-is a
precondition for the creation of a stable political system that does not
simply
pit the urban leaderships of competing ethnic factions against each
other in a
battle for control of the spoils of office.
Although there are areas of concern in Eritrea that should not be
ignored-
controls the state still maintains on the media, continuing restrictions
on
independent political activity, and constraints on the establishment of
nongovernmental organizations, for example-this new nation is clearly a
work-in-
progress that needs time to mature. The U.S. should back off from
pressuring
Eritrea to impose a pluralistic political model drawn up in Washington
and
should instead support Asmara's plan to build such a system in stages,
rooted
within its own history and culture. The U.S. could, for example, provide
funds
for Eritrea's remarkable multilingual education system and its homegrown
adult
literacy campaign.
Today, Eritrea maintains particularly close relations with Ethiopia. The
two
erstwhile enemies have open borders and are engaged in numerous joint
economic
projects. Together with Uganda, they have taken the lead in expanding
the
function of the Inter-Governmental Authority for Development (IGAD) from
drought
relief toward resolving crises such as that in Sudan and generating
joint
infrastructure projects to promote regional integration. The U.S. should
support
these initiatives. The post-independence experience of other liberation
movements raises questions as to whether the Eritrean government's
highly
centralized structures and controls can assure democracy in the long
run.
Nevertheless, the Eritrean government enjoys wide internal popularity,
and its
commitments to economic and political self-development and regional
stabilization deserve respect and support from Washington
Sources for more information
World Wide Web
Africa News On-Line
http://www.africanews.org
Africa Policy Information Center
http://www.igc.org/apic/index.shtml
Eritrea on the Net
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/hyplan/dmulholl/eritrea/eritrea.html
Organizations
Africa Policy Information Center/
Washington Office on Africa
110 Maryland Ave. NE
Washington, DC 20017
Voice: (202) 546-7961
Fax: (202) 546-1545
Email: apic@igc.apc.org & woa@igc.apc.org
African Rights
11 Marshalsea Rd.
London SE1 1EP, UK
Voice: (44-171) 717-1224
Fax: (44-171) 717-1240
Email: afrights@gn.apc.org
Center of Concern
3700 13th St. NE
Washington, DC 20012
Voice: (202) 635-2757
Fax: (202) 837-9494
Grassroots International
179 Boylston St., 4th Flr.
Boston, MA 02130
Voice: (617) 524-1400
Fax: (617) 524-5525
Email: grassroots@igc.apc.org
Human Rights Watch/Africa
485 Fifth Ave., 3rd Flr.
New York, NY 10017
Voice: (212) 972-8400
Fax: (212) 972-0905
Email: hrwnyc@hrw.org
Publications
Dan Connell, Against All Odds: A Chronicle of the Eritrean Revolution
(Lawrenceville, NJ: Red Sea Press, 1993, revised 1997).
Dan Connell, "After the Shooting Stops: Revolution in Postwar Eritrea,"
Race &
Class, vol. 38, no. 4, April-June 1997.
Eritrea Profile, c/o Embassy of Eritrea, 1708 New Hampshire Ave. NW,
Washington,
DC 20009.
Eritrean Studies Review, Red Sea Press, 11-D Princess Rd.,
Lawrenceville, NJ
08648.
Middle East Report, 1500 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Ste. 119, Washington, DC
20005.
Northeast African Studies, Michigan State University Press, 1405 S.
Harrison
Rd., 25 Manly Miles
Bldg., E. Lansing, MI 48823-5202.
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