Crying "Sovereignty" While Dismantling The Nation State

Ever have this feeling?  You are reading some of our compatriots, some of them with Ph.Ds, and you ask yourself, �Which Eritrea are they describing?�  Makes you want to consider the theory of parallel universes, doesn�t it?  Maybe there is one Eritrea, somewhere, that fits their description: an Eritrea where all the leading indicators are promising, where huge strides are being made in the political, social and economic spheres.  A military powerhouse that can more than defend itself: a highly-motivated Warsay-Yeka�alo literally building a nation.   This is according to the description of the non-stop Delegates of Yohanna Yodelers that the PFDJ sends us, always paying lip service to sovereignty while actively dismantling the nation state.   

There is also another Eritrea, somewhere, that fits another description: a nation that has underground prisons, �Track B� torture chambers and �helicopter� suspensions and political intrigue of government officials bribing citizens to provide false testimony on their compatriots; a nation whose laws are the uttering of one man; a system that imprisons the most vulnerable members of its society; a nation whose conscripted army are demoralized almost beyond repair.   This is according to the description of those who escaped its dungeons: Colonel Fikre, Tseggai Negassi, Haile Measho, Milkias Mehretab, Semere Kesete and many others.

Which train you are on--the Yohanna Yodelers Express or the Sky Is Falling Special�is a factor on how you view the whole rationale for having a dialogue with Ethiopia.  

I see Eritrea as a train careening dangerously off-track and one whose very presence is endangered by PFDJ�s mismanagement of its affairs.  In the absence of assertive action by the international community, refusal to have dialogue with Ethiopia has only two alternatives�war and heightened tension-which will only speed up the dangerously off track train.    In other words, refusal to have dialogue actually endangers our sovereignty.

PARALLELS WITH SOMALIA

I will say �Somalia� and you say�?  My guess is that the words that came to your mind are not �border dispute with Ethiopia.�   This is despite the fact that Somalia DOES have a border dispute with Ethiopia, a dispute over which it went to war at least twice.  But Somalia�s problems are so vast that its border issue pales in comparison.    I say this to make the point that there are far worse things than an un-demarcated border that can happen to a state�and, right now, President Isaias Afwerki and his legion of yes-men are committing every one of them.

Irrelevant, you say.  Very relevant, I say.  The dialogue skeptics will say, �you cannot have democracy without having a state.  Let�s settle our border issue, then we will deal with the rest.�  It sounds good, but the argument doesn�t go far enough.   Because it assumes that everything is static; it assumes that nothing will change.  It discounts the eroding effects of time: that Eritrea could be just another African basket case, a nation that is a state in name only, a nation where the people have given up on bringing about change.  A nation that has an increasing number of its people abandoning the land.   Even now, to some Eritreans, the conclusion of the demarcation process is not a sign that Eritrea�s borders are permanently defined; it simply means that one venue formerly opened for escape is now closed. 

When Siad Barre excluded some of his countrymen from power sharing, many found exile in Ethiopia and formed pressure groups that eventually led to the collapse of the Siad Barre regime and, with him, the collapse of the Somali State.  Having ruled it for nearly two decades, Siad Barre, like Isaias Afwerki, equated himself with his nation.  Barre considered only his clan members, the Marhan, to be loyal and thus worthy or ruling; the other clans created opposition groups, some based in Ethiopia.  Isaias considers only his clan members, the PFDJ generals, to be loyal and thus worthy of ruling; those Eritreans who are not members of the PFDJ clan have joined the opposition, and some are based in Addis.

There are two reactions to Eritrean opposition groups based in Addis: one is to condemn their very existence as a treasonous act and another is to condemn the political environment in Eritrea that forced nationals to be exiled out of their own country that they helped liberate.  If the developments of the past five years are a good indication, the second reaction will become more prevalent over the first. 

Some Eritreans have expressed skepticism about the timing of the dialogue.  Some of us are very skeptical about this skepticism only because we have no faith in the government�s sense of timing.  Remember:  the government signaled its acceptance of the framework agreement via a midnight telefax to the UN, a day after our forces were overrun at Badme; the government reversed its position of refusing to withdraw from disputed territories without a ceasefire after the Third Offensive when Isaias communicated to Bouteflika that Eritrea would withdraw from Bada and Bure, as Ethiopia was assaulting Zalambesa; the government of Eritrea officially named a war committee not before the first, not before the second, not before the third, but after the Third Offensive; the government began the detention of Ethiopians who were alleged to be security threats not before but after the signing of the peace agreement.   In short, to many of us, the fact that the Eritrean government is saying that this is the wrong time for dialogue goes a long way to convincing us that the exact opposite must be true.   But irrespective of what the government believes, some of us believe that if dialogue is inevitable (and we believe it is), then it should be held when Eritrea has, at least on this subject, the moral high ground where the extraction for concessions will be at its absolute minimum.  Now is that time.

Now is the time because all the pull-factors of a nation-state�the factors that encourage us to become stakeholders�are, thanks to the PFDJ, at their lowest and getting worse; simultaneously, all the push-factors of a nation-state�the other identities which are based on regional, ethnic and religious affiliations that complement nationalism (in democratic states) or act as substitutes (in autocratic states)�are at their highest and increasing.   If we accept that things are not static, then we have to entertain the possibility that at some point enough people may stop caring about the whole concept of independent and sovereign Eritrea only because independent and sovereign Eritrea has been equated with Isaias Afwerki.  To reject Isaias Afwerki will then be to reject the idea of an independent and sovereign nation.    I fear that the stakes are that high and you wouldn't think I am being alarmist if you spoke to some of our youth.

If this generation loses Eritrea by Somalizing it because we kept postponing what shouldn�t have been (and I am not talking about border demarcation but national democractization and creation of a viable economy, which cannot come without normalization of relationship with either Sudan or Ethiopia or both), and future generations ask us why, will we then say, �No apologies. Absolutely none�? 

Mitigating The Risks Of Dialogue

To be sure, there are risks associated with dialogue.  What will mitigate them is to recognize that:

(a)   In real terms, the border dispute is not one between Ethiopia and the world (as many claim) but one between Ethiopia and Eritrea.  Suppose a husband and wife file for divorce and the husband is ordered by the court to pay child support.   And the husband does not.  Technically, we can say that the husband has a problem with the law; in reality, who suffers is the wife and the kids. If this is a common problem (and it is), the court just adds the case to its missing-husbands file leaving the wife alone to fend for herself.  This claim of Ethiopia�s-quarrel-is-with-the-world-and-not-Eritrea is nothing more than a means to postpone the inevitable: to deal with the problem.

(b)   We should do whatever it takes to have the sustained interest of the EU and the USA.  One way to have the EU and the US to continue to show interest in the case is for Eritrea to be a nation-in-good-standing with the always-important EU and the United States.  When arguing �rule of law� and �justice� on the border issue, it is helpful to not mock �rule of law� and �justice� as western inventions, when they bring up those points in the matter of governance.  Another way to have sustained interest of the EU and the US is to resist the temptation to present all sorts of psychological explanations for why Ethiopia is behaving the way it is to Eritrea. The threshold of a �border dispute� is not that high; as the South African paper The Sowetan explained five years ago, any two states can have a border dispute.    It is NOT in Eritrea�s interest to define the argument as anything but a border dispute because a border dispute is the kind of conflict that invites solution.  If, on the other hand, we insist on talking about what Ethiopia did to Eritrea in 1950 or what Atse so-and-so did to Blatta so-and-so in the 15^th century, or Abai Tigray or other psychobabble, then we are unwittingly communicating the message that this problem is a blood-fued that is insoluble.  

There is also the claim that the TPLF is inherently unreliable and a party with whom one should not enter into agreements.  This is a self-defeating argument (and a false one to boot.)  The TPLF is the same organization which has delegates to the Military Co-ordination Commission that meets regularly and holds dialogues with its Eritrean counterparts; it is the same organization that the ICRC deals with when repatriating Eritrean and Ethiopian prisoners of war; it is the same organization that the PFDJ entered hundreds of agreements with; it is the same organization that signed border treaties with the Sudan, and development agreements with international agencies.  The �they are untrustworthy� canard is nothing more than a tacit endorsement of the PFDJ�s ambitions to play king-maker in Ethiopia and excuse its failure in bringing about a lasting peace.    It is amazing to me that the PFDJ, which has repeatedly demonstrated its incompetence to govern a nation of four million people would presume to know what is in the best interest of a nation of over seventy million people.  Please, a little modesty.

Dialogue Now Actually Reduces Risk To Our Sovereignty

Whereas Meles and Company may be faulted for endangering the nation-state by attempting to reduce its size (the perimeter), Isaias and Company should be faulted for acts of commission and omission that are actually dismantling the State (its building blocks.) If we assume that the international community will not do anything substantial to change the situation and if we assume that we are not in a position to reclaim by force what is rightfully ours, refusal to talk is an actual endorsement of the current stalemate and status quo: an Eritrea that cannot have full control over 25% of its land (including its most fertile areas) and one where the people continue to be under the assault of their government.  Does anyone think that this situation can be sustained indefinitely?

Of the two dangers, the former is relatively easier to engage because the Ethiopians are at least willing to negotiate based on their own stated rules of engagement (no war, terms of Algiers Agreement) and willing to give a role to third parties.  On the other hand, Isaias and Company have repeatedly told anyone who cares to listen that in the war they are waging against the people of Eritrea, they are not going to be bound by the constitution, by international law, by Eritrean culture, by decency or any norms.   Faced with a choice of giving up power or giving up the land, Isaias & Co will give up the land each and every time: they will have no problem retreating to Sahel where they can exercise total power over a small land than no power over a big land.

Dialogue: The Parameters

When deliberating about land over which there is a priori agreement that it can change hands with a stroke of a pen, it is unhelpful to use highly emotive words, absolutist slogans and dogmatic statements like �no way in hell� (as Meles did in his interview with IRIN.) Slogans may be useful words for a general to use in charging up the adrenaline of his troops, but they are destructive to diplomats and scholars charged with finding solutions to a difficult problem.   If you doubt this, all you have to remember is that all it took was five lawyers (foreigners, at that) to re-define the Western co-ordinates of our sovereignty from Mai Ten-Mai Anbessa (Point 8 to Point 9) to Tomsa-Mai Anbessa (Point 6 to Point 9.)  Just like that, the sliver of 6-8-9 Triangle was gone, on the basis on the interpretation of five lawyers. 

The post-boundary-commission-ruling Eritrea is smaller than the one that existed in our minds prior to April 13, 2002.     This is straight from the horse�s mouth: according to Mr. Thomas Johnson, one of the lawyers who represented Eritrea to the EEBC, Eritrea won �85% to 90% of the disputed territory.�   Put differently, 10% to 15% of the disputed land that we thought was ours was awarded to Ethiopia.  Isaias Afwerki, who never has to bother about the political ramifications of land lost or gained, brushed off the loss by saying that it is insignificant and the people would be resettled, anyway.

And what is the meaning of �Natna aynhben, zeynatna ayndelin� when land can be won and lost by a technicality?  Example: How was the case of Tserona and Fort Cardona decided? According to the EEBC ruling (4.69 and 4.70), these areas were awarded to Eritrea not because the evidence shows they belong to Eritrea (��the Commission finds, on the basis of evidence before it, Tserona and Fort Cardona are not� part of Eritrea) but because the Ethiopian government disowned them, in writing, and the Commission could not ignore a �written pleading� from Ethiopia.  In other words, we won them on a technicality. 

There may also be other cases where each side knows that it won a specific case not because it was right, but because the other side was unable to provide the evidence.  The objective of lawyers is to ensure that they win and the other side loses (legality); the objective of neighboring politicians burdened with the awesome task of creating neighborly relations should be to create win-win situations for both people (give and take.)  And if they cannot, they should relinquish power to those who are willing to do so. 

So what are the parameters of our dialogue?  The parameters are self-defined: the subject of discussion should be any border area over which there is still dispute.    If the objective is to remove the word �disputed� from a border, then whatever is disputed should be included within the parameter.  There is no need to be terribly pessimistic about this issue: remember, the size of the disputed land has been reduced dramatically from 1998 (when Ethiopia would not even specify the totality of its claims) to 2003 (when Ethiopia is signaling partial acceptance of the EEBC ruling.)

It would be irresponsible for me to specify which areas should be bartered for which ones (because this involves not just land, but people).  Nor am I suggesting that it would be easy to do so.  But if there are two parties that can do that, it would be the PFDJ and the TPLF.  These former liberation movements that got to know these areas (and the people than live in these areas) intimately for decades are best placed to reach mutually satisfactory agreements.  The claim that the PFDJ is not empowered to barter with our �sovereignty� is disingenuous as it is unrealistic.  It is disingenuous if it is coming from people who gave the government their �unconditional support� to do anything it wants; it is unreal because there is no other Eritrean entity that is remotely close to challenge the PFDJ if and when it does so. 

It should be noted here that this horse-trading would not be in violation of EEBC: the EEBC only needs the agreement of both sides�their pleadings�to amend decisions it has reached.

Taking The Case To The Security Council

Here�s one option (which requires little dialogue): Eritrea could agree to having the Security Council retry the case with the following proviso: the basis would be the Algiers Agreement and, as with all appellate courts, the parties would not be allowed to submit new evidence that had not been submitted to the Boundary Commission.   In essence, this would call Meles Zenawi�s bluff.   A commission appointed by the Security Council would then make a ruling on the significantly reduced disputed territory.   Now, what would Eritrea possibly get from this deal?  Consider this possibility: the exact same decision, or something pretty damn close, would be rendered, with one difference: this time, Ethiopia would be defying the Security Council�the one agency in the world that doesn�t like to be defied.  Moreover, the Security Council�unlike the Boundary Commission�has a direct interest in returning a speedy verdict because it has a vested interest in removing UNMEE.

It appears to me that we sometimes exaggerate the alleged astuteness of the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry.  Well, read 4.69 and 4.70 again.  (What the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry is traditionally good at is something else, which is to nurture satellite groups.)   It appears to me that sometimes we act as if this EEBC ruling was a jackpot that cannot be repeated.  I have faith in our cause; I believe that any fair group of judges, presented the same evidence, will rule in like manner.   I think we should welcome Meles�s invitation of the Security Council�because I see the SC as EEBC with the power to enforce its own decisions, something the EEBC is clearly not capable of. 

People To People Dialogue: A Token Proposal

Finally, many of the people who responded to my last article were critical about the contents of my people-to-people dialogue: they saw the proposal as some sort of ill-defined book-club, neighborhood-watch, get-together.  Give us something real, man, they challenged.  Here�s one.   You know how Dr. Tekie Fessehazion and Dr. Ghidewon Asmerom conduct sessions about the �border issue.�  Instead of preaching to the choir and duplicating the services of PFDJ�s non-stop delegations of Yohanna Yodelers, why not organize an Eritrean-Ethiopian forum where they would join two Ethiopian intellectuals and present their arguments to a packed audience of Eritreans and Ethiopians.   

This will not result in any conversions, of course, but it will at least elevate the dialogue because people who are speaking face-to-face don�t generally address each other as �neftegna� and �banda.�   And in an environment of civility and sobriety, peace becomes more likely which, after all, is the real objective of demarcation.

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