We were never concerned with the tripartite alliance even when senior officials of other countries were concerned. We support alliances among countries that center around bilateral cooperation and partnership. � Isaias Afwerki, back from Yemen

I was watching an interesting program on ERI-TV, which was covering a hearing of the Eritrean Assembly�s Foreign Affairs Committee (EAFAC).  Two officials and a scholar were testifying in front of the Committee: Ali Said (Foreign Minister), Ahmed Baduri (Eritrea�s ambassador to the UN) and Dihli (Eritrean Center for Strategic Studies.)  Here�s how it went:

Counsel for FAC:  We are here to check the veracity of President Isaias' claim that his administration was not concerned about the Sudan-Yemen-Ethiopia alliance.  Mr. Ali Said, could you read the heading of the paper in front of you. 

Ali Said:  Bin Laden Determined To Strike the United States

Counsel for FAC: No, not that document!  Could you read from the paper dated October 31, 2002? It should be familiar to you because your office issued it...

Ali Said: �An Axis Of Belligerence Cannot Be Tolerated�

Counsel for FAC: Could you now read the sixth paragraph of the press release?

Ali Said: �Each of the three countries of the axis has thus been individually pursuing bellicose policies of aggression and subversion against Eritrea for the past years. Recently, they have gone further to host a conference in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, of mercenary and Jihad groups for acts of terror and subversion against Eritrea.�

Counsel for FAC:  Thank you, Mr. Minister.  Mr. Baduri, what did you do with this press release?

Baduri: I submitted it as an annex to the UN Security Council, the same day.

Counsel for FAC:  Thank you, Mr. Ambassador.  Now, Mr. Dihli, could you read any headline from the volumnous series of papers your center issued following this press release?

Mr. Dihli: The Sana'a Axis of Belligerence: Practicing Terrorism and Supporting Terrorists

Counsel for FAC: Could you read the summary of Part 3 of your series?

Mr. Dihli: �The trio states of Sana�a axis, namely Ethiopia, Sudan and Yemen, maintain strong ties, one way on another, with terrorism, either through state terrorism or by providing all sorts of support to the elements that have strong connections with Al-Qa�ida organization led by Osama Bin Ladin.� 

Ok, that was unbelievable.  The documents exist, the people are real, but the "assembly" is fictitious and that ERE-TV would cover it even if one existed is surreal.  But no more surreal than when the PFDJ present themselves as sticklers for the law.  Here�s a fun project.  You know our friends who can recite chapter and verse of the OAU Framework Agreement, its Modalities, the Technical Arrangement, the Algiers Agreement, the ruling of the Boundary Commission and UN Treaties.   Now ask them this: which law did Eritreans who are now in jail break?   And what is the supreme law of Eritrea?  Is it the ratified constitution?  Is it the Derg-era Penal Code? And where exactly do we find �defeatism� and �pant-wetting� in this fine document?   

Re-evaluating the �Odd War�

Before the �senseless war�, there was the 1995 �odd war,� so called, according to the Saudi Gazzette.  Almost exactly 9 years ago, on December 15-17, Eritrea and Yemen were engaged in a three-day war where 12 members of our EDF paid their lives, according the press reports of the time.   What exactly happened?  At the time, I was publishing a mini-magazine called Eritrean Exponent, which presented an unofficial Eritrean version and an official Yemeni version of events.  The unofficial Eritrean version was borrowed (with permission) from Dr. Tekie Fessehazion�s contribution to Dehai and the official Yemeni version was given to me by Mr. Ahmed Atef, the information officer at Yemen�s embassy to the United States. (Mr. Atef had no idea that the Exponent�s circulation was no more than 100)

Dr. Tekie�s Fessehazion, who happened to be in Eritrea at the time the war broke out, qualifies his report as �one man�s understanding of the sequence of events�, and does an excellent job of capturing the mood in Eritrea (sad, measured), the tone in Yemen (angry, provocative.)  Having �talked to a lot of people familiar with the case�, he reports that pre-war negotiation efforts had failed partly because of Yemeni condescension and unreasonable requests and cautions us to remind ourselves that Eritrea is not the aggressor but the victim of aggression. 

Mr. Atef�s version also expresses sadness over the war, but then says, ��the first requirement in the Hanish dispute is the restoration of the situation before December 15, 1995 which means the end of the invasion by the withdrawal of the Eritrean forces from the island�� 

When one considers the following: that the Yemeni media was going completely bonkers, that the Yemeni opposition parties were clamoring for war, that the Arab League had somehow managed to blame Israel (of course) and trying to change this conflict into an Arab-Africa war; that Yemen had a simmering border dispute with Saudi Arabia and, most importantly, that Eritrea had been a state for all of two years, the natural conclusion we all had was: it is Yemen�s fault and it is doing it for reasons of domestic consumption.

And Then The Vantage of Time

In the summer of 1998, Professor Jeffrey A Lefebvre, wrote a piece called �Red Sea Security And The Geopolitical-Economy of The Hanish Islands Dispute� (Middle East Journal, Volume 52, No 3.)   Accompanied by 138 footnotes and citing Eritrean, Yemeni as well as anonymous officials in the US government, the essence of what appears is mostly hinted at by the long title.   

But the publication, which I didn�t get to read until much later (2000?), was jolting to me.  It changed everything I thought I knew.  I will include the pieces, verbatim:

�Prompted by concern over the Yemeni construction project on Hanish al-Kabir, Eritrea�s Foreign Minister Petros Solomon* delivered, on 11 November 1995, an ultimatum giving San�a one month to withdraw Yemeni military forces and civilians from Hanish al-Kabir.� � p 372-373

�On 22 November 1995, Yemen�s Foreign Minister Adb al-Karim al-Iryani met in San�a� with three Eritrean officials to discuss the problem.  Iryani, heading a Yemeni delegation, then attended a meeting in Eritrea on 7 December.  There, both sides agreed to resolve their dispute over maritime borders through negotiations, which they scheduled for February 1996.   If those negotiations failed, both sides agreed to take the case to the ICJ at The Hague.  Why, then, did Eritrea attack Hanish al-Kabir only a few days after its 11 November ultimatum had expired, and just a week after agreeing to resolve this dispute diplomatically?� � p 373

Gutmann [French mediator] produced an Agreement on Principles, which Eritrea and Yemen signed on 21 May.  The two sides agreed to resort to arbitration, to refrain from using force, and to abide by the verdict of an arbitration tribunal.  The French mediation effort almost collapsed when, on 10 August, Eritrean forces occupied Hanish al-Saghir.  With Yemen threatening to take military action, the UN Security Council ordered Eritrean troops off the island.  Asmara withdrew its forces on 27 August�.The renewed threat of conflict prompted Eritrea, at the end of August, to begin deploying along its coastline Russian-made SAM missiles acquired from Ethiopia. � p381

If the argument is that Meles needs to be more like Ali Abdella and honor a treaty he has signed, it is also true that Isaias needs to be more like Ali Abdella and take initiative to dialogue.  After all, if all that is required for peace and good neighborly relations is acceptance of treaties, why is it that Eritrea and Yemen who went to war in 1995, accepted a Hague Treaty in 1998, are now recovering from belligerence in 2004?  To the Yemeni fishermen, the Hague Treaty meant nothing: they went on fishing and, despite the treaty, Eritrea and Yemen were in a cold war for six years. 

In 1995, Meles Zenawi offered to mediate the Isaias Afwerki-Ali Abdella Saleh feud (ironcially, he was rejected by Yemen because he was thought to be too close to Isaias.)  In 2000, the Qatari Emir offered to mediate the Isaias-Bashir feud. (That went nowhere.)  In 2004, Ali Abdella is offering to mediate the Isaias-Meles, Isaias-Bashir feud.   Is there maybe, just maybe, a different explanation than �it is everybody else�s fault?�   

Next Time

All successful politicians have a finely-tuned sense of timing, an ability to frame and dominate the issues and are endowed with competitive killer instinct.  There is no question that Isaias is a successful politician, the ultimate survivor and his rapprochement with Yemen �adds one more life to the nine-lived cat,� as a friend put it.   To frame the issue, he created a non-existent �axis of belligerence,� which had the desired effect of paralyzing some of our opposition members (I can just imagine their discussions: �Well, to deal with Yemen is exactly the same as dealing with Ethiopia, after all, they have an axis. We can't do that!)   He used the opportunity handed to him on a platter because he understands in politics it is all about winning.  

But the opposition should not despair: Isaias just came back from Yemen with eight agreements�that is eight agreements he will break and pick a new fight.  Better luck next time; there is always �next time� in politics.

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* PS, if you want to read into this that Petros Solomon was to "blame" for the fiasco, please look at how Ali Said was made to stand there while President Isaias disowned the statement of his foreign minsiter.  Then you will know who is running the show solo.  In any event, that still does not justify imprisoning him without trial for over three years now.  Which law did he break? The Algiers Agreement? Don't even get me started on jailing his WIFE for one year, without trial and without having a glance at her children.