The flaw with all the Security Council resolutions, the one Big White Elephant that the Security Council refuses to acknowledge is this: the stated policy of both Eritrea and Ethiopia is to work for a regime change in the enemy state.  Each is seen by the other as an existential threat.  And so long as that is the mindset, the best that one is allowed to hope for is a state of no-war-no peace.  But a state of permanent peace is unthinkable. 

Here Come The "Comprehensive Exams"

If the last seven years are a guide, there is one certainty in how the governments of Eritrea and Ethiopia will react to the latest announcement by the Security Council:  notwithstanding their public postures, privately they will write long letters, with a long list of questions, asking for clarifications.  Back when things were going Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's way in the diplomatic arena (May 1998 - March 1999), he derided President Isaias Afwerki's first letter, then addressed to the OAU's conflict resolution organ regarding the proposed Framework Agreement as "a comprehensive exam."  But since the issuance of the Technical Arrangement, Meles Zenawi has also joined the professors' class, issuing his own comprehensive exams (at one point, wagging his chalk and asking the exhausted students "why wasn't the option I put forth considered?")

Of course, heads of states have the right and the duty to continuously ask for questions and clarifications to bring about a solution that is most favorable to their nations.  But there are two problems with the way Meles Zenawi and Isaias Afwerki conduct them. 

First, it is very obvious from the letters that there is no policy formulation body in either nation: the letters are not the result of analysis, or cabinet meetings: they just express the fleeting thoughts of their authors.  In that regard, they are nothing more than the "Comrade Isaias" and "Comrade Meles" letters that Isaias and Meles wrote each other in 1997-1998 as the two nations obliviously marched to war.  The only difference is that they are written in English and they are addressed to somebody else. (This is a digression, but have you noticed that in all the letters of Isaias, Eritrea's capital is referred to as "Asmera" whereas every other ministry, including the information ministry, refers to it as "Asmara"?) 

The second problem is that the letters are not an attempt to get clarifications, but to eliminate all risks completely so that the facilitator provides them absolute assurance of what will happen at the scheduled meetings--an impossible request for a facilitator.   

Partners To War

Treaties can take many forms.  They can be between a victor and vanquished: the victor dictates the terms, the vanquished reaches out, in the words of Khomeini, for the poison drink.   A treaty can be between senior and juniors: the donor nations and their loan terms, for example.  It can be between protectors and their satellites (the Warsaw Pact, for example.)  It can be between nations that share values (North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for example.)  In peace treaties that work, each side accepts their status, eagerly or reluctantly.  There is no such environment in Eritrea and Ethiopia; in fact, everything has conspired to create a state of standstill. 

Ethiopia says we were the victors of the recent war; Eritrea says we were not vanquished. Ethiopia says we are bigger and more strategic; Eritrea says but we have a long coast line.  The mark of pride in Ethiopian history is its ability to fend off foreign aggression (most of whom entered via Eritrea, we are reminded); Eritrean history's mark of pride is its ability to overcome overwhelming odds (against powers allied with Ethiopia, we remind them.)  Ethiopia has a bigger economy, but Eritrea has one less dependent on foreign aid. To a surprising degree, the self-image of each nation is shaped in relation to the other.

The language and outlook of international diplomats and journalists contributes to the standstill.  They admire Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and fear the latent chaos of his people; and when it comes to Eritrea, they fear the latent chaos of President Isaias Afwerki and admire the Eritrean people.  Thus, the trepidation with tinkering the treaties.

The Algiers Agreement has formulas for standstill: the witnesses are guarantors of the peace agreement whose implementation is ultimately the responsibility of the two parties. I am not finding flaws with the language of the agreement: it is tightly constructed and is a model of clarity.  But its imperfections are only evident in retrospect: it was naivet� to expect that such legal document would be completely independent from the politics of the day: does anybody seriously expect that the US and the EU will trigger the punitive measures called for in the agreement? 

The various rulings of the EEBC and the EECC contributed to the standstill: Eritrea was not justified to cross into Badme, they said, and, by the way, Badme belongs to Eritrea. We know, Ethiopia used to administer Badme, it lost it to Eritrea briefly, it regained it by force, but now has to return it peacefully, because there may be war again if it doesn�t.

Both governments may take turns sensing that the other government is just a shove away from disintegrating and those beliefs are deep seated, hard-coded and widely-held within the opinion-shaping elite of the two nations, i.e., Meles Zenawi and Isaias Afwerki.  Meles Zenawi has publicly stated that the next war will be the last war and if war is initiated, he won't stop until he marches to Asmara.  Meanwhile, Isaias Afwerki has predicted publicly not just about the fall of Meles Zenawi but, that this fall is so imminent the doomsday clock is at the eleventh hour, fifty nine minutes and fifty nine seconds (11:59:59) and counting. 

Even after discounting the usual hyperbole, one has to concede that such views don't invite peace treaties, particularly when one considers a disturbing set of facts:  the two are not bluffing.   Isaias Afwerki has demonstrated, repeatedly, that he has a knack for creating and/or nurturing groups that can slay dragons (the TPLF, the Southern Sudanese rebels.)  Those who dismiss his rearing efforts now with Ethiopia's Kinjit and Sudan's Beja Congress do so at their own peril.  On the other hand, Meles Zenawi has also demonstrated that when he wears his war mask, he puts on the whole ensemble and is a disciple of the "total victory" school of war.

Gone are the days when each side could claim that war was forced on them: now they are both incentivized to pursue it.  For Isaias Afwerki, it is the conviction that Meles Zenawi has never been politically weaker and sees in Ethiopia a hot iron that must be struck.  Conversely, the weakened political status of Meles Zenawi makes it all but impossible for him to alienate the one constituency that is still loyal to him, the hard-core Tigrayans, and just like there were Ethiopians (mostly Amharic speaking ones) who used to argue that Italy's war of 1935 nullified the colonial treaties it signed with Ethiopia at the turn of the century, there are Ethiopians who believe that any future war with Eritrea would nullify the Algiers Agreement.  A war with Eritrea would not rally all Ethiopians, but Meles would surely reclaim the Zeraf constituency.

A formula for standstill�

The Politics of Law

It never made any sense to me why Meles Zenawi refused to have face-to-face discussions in 1998-2000 (reducing the exchanges to comprehensive exams, proxy talks and proximity talks) and it never makes sense to me why Isaias Afwerki refuses to have face-to-face talks 2002-present.  Well, of course, there were very legal sounding arguments for not talking as many Ethiopians used to remind me in 1998-2000 and as many Eritreans remind me now: for Meles, talking then would have meant "rewarding aggression" and for Isaias, talking now would mean "rewarding belligerence" but all these are self-fulfilling prophesies.     If a nation routinely crosses borders in "hot pursuit" of this "bandit" or the other, as Ethiopia did and does in Somalia and Kenya, it strains credulity to speak of aggression; if a nation routinely breaks all international norms and pokes its fingers in everybody's eye, as Isaias's Eritrea does, that too tells us of the hues of pots and kettles.

The Truth & The Law

Despite our unique history which should have taught us that there is a clear difference between "the truth" and "the law", we Eritreans always confuse the two.   The truth can exist suspended, it is eternal and it sustained people in the caves of Sahel and river banks of Gash Barka when the law called them bandits.  But the law, particularly international law, is whatever the politicians say it is. In international affairs, the choice is not, with all due respect to its exponents, a check off list that has only "law" and "jungle."  These are stark choices, presented by those who see war as the only alternative to disagreement or even lawlessness. 

There is always room for deliberate ambiguity. You call it Asmera, I will call it Asmara�

Diplomacy, one can argue, is all about breaking down the stark choices of the law and the jungle or, at the very least, creating third options (call it the "jaw"). Let's bring it home: let's pretend for a second that we were a nation where public opinion actually mattered and the public were to tell its politicians "find a solution to this problem without declaring war."  What, then, would have been the choice? And would that have meant that the people are choosing the jungle over the law?

Whether it is called "dialog", "consultation," "discussion", "talk", "round", at the end of the day, that is the alternative to the jungle.  To state that the only option to law is the jungle is a dangerous self-fulfilling prophecy, particularly when one has very little influence in enforcing the law and constantly alienates those who are in a position to enforce the law.  And that is the flaw with OUR thinking...one more explanation for the stalemate.

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