In 1998-99, I used to exchange e-mails with a Western NGO employee.  I shall withhold his name because our communication was private.  Looking back at it now, the purpose of the communication, as with all communications during that period, was not to understand each other�s viewpoint; rather, it was to emphatically stress your views and express outrage that the other person doesn�t understand them.  It was a �fairness� vs �proportionality� argument.  He used to argue that it was unfair, and in defiance of all norms of fairness, to ask Meles Zenawi to hold face-to-face bilateral dialogue with Isaias Afwerki because, by doing so, Meles would be rewarding Isaias for his aggression.    I used to argue that even if one takes what Meles Zenawi is saying as the absolute truth�that Isaias committed aggression�then the path Meles Zenawi is pursuing�total war�is disproportionate to the alleged crime. Meles Zenawi should have followed the path of Yemeni president Ali Abdallah Saleh, I argued. 

The Yemen Case

In December 1995, Eritrea and Yemen fought a three-day war.  Over a dozen soldiers died; over 200 Yemeni soldiers were taken prisoners and Eritrea ended up capturing Greater Hanish.  For months, the Yemen parliament was calling for vengeance and, even after the prisoners of war were repatriated via the Red Cross, the Yemeni government, including President Ali Abdallah Saleh, was insisting that there would be no talks until Eritrean forces withdrew from Greater Hanish and apologized.  The mediation efforts began�with Ethiopian foreign minister proposing that both sides withdraw from Greater Hanish, a proposal that was rejected by Isaias.  But then, something happened.  President Ali Abdallah Saleh remembered the destruction of war: Yemen had fought a bloody civil war (Sana vs Aden), which ended in July 1994 after it cost the nation 200 billion US dollars.  So President Ali Abdallah Saleh said: I will not have an ultimatum, I will have a dialogue, I will agree to mediation.  Five months later, the mediation bore fruit; the case was referred to The Hague and Yemen ended up being awarded the disputed Greater Hanish.

My question to my debater was: why can�t Meles Zenawi act like Ali Abdallah Saleh?  And his response was: is the only way for Eritrea to have peace to demand that every nation that Eritrea antagonizes to act like a saint?  How is that fair?  And my response back: is a disproportionate response of escalating a minor problem into catastrophe �fair�? 

Fairness.  Proportionality.  These are universal values that every child knows and every parent has to contend with.   Children are forever appealing a parent�s decision on the grounds that (all together now, in a whiny voice): �It�s Not Fair!!�  Fairness has many characteristics, key among them being �proportionality.�   That is, the reward or punishment must fit the action that precipitated it.    This is the life of a child�then we grow up and maybe we retain and uphold these teachings or life teaches us lessons that confounds or contradicts them. 

Sooner or later, we learn that the ideal of fairness may be a fine thing but life is not fair.  Good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people.  Criminals get away with their crimes and the innocent languish in prisons for decades. Tortures retire in comfortable exile and the wounded endure a life-long struggle with insanity.  We like to think that great events are caused by great causes.   For tens of thousands to die, for hundreds of thousands to be displaced, deported, maimed, the causes must be worthwhile.  But then we come to learn that it is just two people with a bad case of inflamed egos trying to teach each other a lesson. 

For some of us who were part of what Solomon Yekalo calls �the-border-row-season-writers��a precise description--the case was as follows: whatever Isaias did or didn�t do in his secretive dealings with Meles has angered the latter.   Meles should have known that Isaias is not going to unilaterally withdraw from Badme because Meles was trying to mediate the Yemen-Eritrea crisis and had seen that such proposal�Eritrean withdrawal from Greater Hanish--was rejected by Isaias. And it was only a serious threat from the Security Council that forced his hand. So, Meles, have the damn dialogue with Meles! But, no such luck.  Second, once the war had escalated to other fronts and the most oft-repeated phrase was that "Ethiopia would teach Eritrea a lesson it would never forget", many of us were convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that Ethiopia had put its �war mask on�, that Meles had made up his mind, that no treaty would be acceptable, that he would punish Isaias even if, in the process, he was going to reduce Eritrea to rubble.    With these assumptions�and I concede they are only assumptions�the objective was to minimize the damage to Eritrea which, paradoxically, was to help it prepare for a defensive war.

I plead guilty: it did not occur to me for a nano-second that the chief commanding officer of the Eritrean Defense Forces (EDF) would show such gross negligence bordering on treason when it comes to executing the war.  To methodically demolish the nation�s intelligence service; to demoralize the EDF by creating and nurturing a corrupt officers corps who competed to see who would deflower virgins; to freeze or decommission able commanders because they were not sufficiently corrupt; to respond to EDF�s demand for better equipment by lecturing them about how he didn�t have weapons during the armed struggle and many other examples too painful to recount�if that is not a treasonous offense, what is?

Yes, Life Is Unfair 

Meles is saying that what he agreed in advance to be final and binding is in fact the beginning and the negotiable in retrospect.  None of his arguments make sense.  He knows that the decision of the Boundary Commission was unanimous.  He knows that two of the five judges were appointed by Ethiopia and he knows that without the vote of the two judges, the President of the commission would not have been the president.  He knows that the president of the commission has a long and impressive credential.  He accuses the commission and its president of being insensitive to separation of towns and homesteads even though he is fully aware that the president of the commission, Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, is considered an authority on the issue of involuntary dislocation of people�and his work is cited by UNHCR and Human Rights Watch, among others.

So why does he do it?  Because he can.  In a case as clear-cut as this, you would expect the world to come to the aid of Eritrea more forcefully.  But they don�t.  The answer is simple.  The choice is not between angering 71 million Ethiopians (ranked the 17^th in the world) versus angering 4 million Eritreans.  To the world community, it is choosing between 71 million Ethiopians and 1 Eritrean, and an unpopular one at that.  Ethiopia, with all its shortcomings, is considered to be taking baby steps towards democracy; Eritrea is considered to have completely retreated from an oligarchy to a one-man rule.  Meles can speak in the language of democracy: "I�d love to obey your ruling but you understand my government could fail and who knows what kind of instability that would bring about, etc."   Would anyone believe Isaias if he said I can�t open negotiations because if I do the people won�t take it and my government will collapse and who knows who will come to power?   Conversely, if he says: "You better have Ethiopia withdraw from sovereign Eritrean land because if you don�t, we will exercise our military option and force them out," would anybody take this threat to be a credible one?  

Isaias hijacking of Eritrea�s democracy has reduced its clout in the diplomatic arena; Isaias treasonous mismanagement of the Eritrean Defense Forces has squandered the nation�s reputation for military prowess.  Eritrea�s restoration of its sovereignty is now totally dependent on the goodwill of the international community and the cooperation of Meles Zenawi.  I really can�t put it any more succinctly than the way the incomparable Yosief Gebrehiwet has done [in a subject unrelated to this issue]: �If the Woyanies were to successfully plant a spy in the president's office, that spy couldn't have done a better job than advising PIA to undertake all the blunders he has so far committed: either he is TOTALLY IRRATIONAL that he could hardly see what the consequences of his actions might turn out to be; or he is COLDLY RATIONAL, but dead set to destroy the nation for grudges that he holds against the Eritrean people (that perverse intention needn't be conscious at all).�

There is "what should happen"; and there is "what is likely to happen."  What should happen is that Meles Zenawi should weather whatever political storm comes his way and declare that Ethiopia is as good as its word and that it will�in the words of the late Khomeini�drink the political poison and accept and implement the border ruling in its entirety.  What should also happen is that Isaias Afwerki, who is singularly responsible for Eritrea�s current diminishment, should resign his post.   But none of this is very likely.  The diplomats will shuttle; the politicians will issue declarations.  

And then?  My guess is that there will be some sort of an agreement of demarcation by phases.  The demarcation will begin in the Eastern Sector.  Asab.  This will be hyped as a huge victory by Isaias and his followers: �we defeated Weyane militarily in the Assab front and now we have scored another legal victory!�  Ethiopians protesting this will be shown on Eritrean TV, along with another prediction of how this means that the demise of Weyane is coming soon.    Similar production will be seen in other no-longer-contested territories.   This may result in the reduction of the number UNMEE personnel�.

Obviously, I don�t know what will happen next but whatever it is, one thing is for certain: the final settlement to the war--demarcation--will have the same four factors as the initial cause of the war--Badme--: Meles Zenawi, Isaias Afwerki, and their two considerable egos.  Our Four Horsemen, riding over our misery.

Certainly, we can do better. At what point do we consider "leaders" total failures and ask them to leave the stage?  What is a fair response?  What is a proportionate response?

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