By Adhana Haile Adhana

January 19, 2001

I read recently two articles by Dr. Bereket Habte Selassie, an experienced and well-educated Eritrean. The articles are dated December 20 and 24, 2001. The first article (with the title ‘It is hard to predict the past) is rather innocuous as it appears and in so far as Ethiopian affairs are concerned. It focuses on internal Eritrean politics, finely fused with the author’s compelling narrative of loss, apparently of natural cause, of his dearest sister.

On its own, I have really nothing to say concerning the political content of the article. I would have read it and left it to rest as such, that is, merely taking stock of the valuable information it contains. Unfortunately, Bereket has not allowed me to let it rest, as I would have loved to do.

The second article compelled me to give it a re-look, an exercise that has resulted in at least one important lesson about the congenital misfortune of the State of Eritrea: It craves absurdly for Ethiopia’s hostility to continue to be. Apparently, I am afraid, Bereket and co. dread the absence of that hostility.

The second article (bearing the title ‘SEYOUM MESFIN AND THE COLONIAL BORDERS: Insinuations of Future War, or a Tactical Ploy?’) focuses almost exclusively of Ethiopian political affairs. This second article appeared in News.Asmarino.Com. The author ostensibly takes issue with a statement by the Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin on the Ethiopia-Eritrea peace process on the eve of the scheduled hearings at The Hague, the Netherlands. Regarding Ethiopia, the Minister emphasized one fundamental theme in his statement: Ethiopia expected a verdict based on the pertinent colonial treaties (of 1900, 1902, and 1908) and applicable international law on the boundary dispute with Eritrea and that Ethiopia has submitted its well prepared case to the Boundary Commission.

The Minister’s statement also made one other fundamental point regarding Eritrea’s case: Eritrea’s case is largely based on Italian colonial self-serving maps and their duplicates and that these maps will not be helpful to Eritrea because they lacked probative value. The Minister, in conclusion, articulated Ethiopia’s conviction that the Commission would exclude political considerations in making their verdict.

It is indisputably appalling that Bereket read or suspected ‘insinuations of future war, or a tactical ploy,’ ‘belligerent intentions,’ ambiguity, or equivocation in the Minister’s obviously plain statement. Bereket’s conclusion is even more appalling as it is war-like. He concluded as follows:

We are left with the assumption that [Foreign Minister] Seyoum Mesfin’s ambiguous articulation of Ethiopia’s position on the demarcation of borders must be designed as a face saving device to mollify revanchist elements in Ethiopia, notably groups in the Amhara and Tigray regions. But no Eritrean believes that, in view of the experience of the 1998-2000 war and its causes, we should let our guards down. On the contrary, despite some of our internal differences with the government, this is one issue on which we stand united. Let no one mistake our current squabbles, which is an internal affair, as a sign of division where the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Eritrea is concerned.

Of course the same Bereket is not without diplomatic niceties. As a part of the quoted conclusion he wishes success to the peace process. In his own words:

Finally, I hope and wish that the Algiers peace accord is on track, as the U.N. Secretary General has said lately, an that the boundaries are demarcated and peace restored between the two countries so that we can begin the healing of the wounds that a two-year murderous war had inflicted.

Now is the most opportune moment to call forward the essentials of the first article. One learns from the article that Eritrea finds itself locked in an unending political crisis. Bereket obviously wants to see an all-Eritrea national movement superseding the crisis, which he evaluates as being crippling. In Bereket’s own words,

I hunger for a better future that rejects these crippling divisions. I devoutly desire a coming together of all Eritreans on a common ground to forge ahead, hand in hand, to a future of progress and prosperity. I see the two sides of the primary political division (ELF versus EPLF/PFDJ?) stuck in the rut of the resentment an concealed grudges of the past. Perhaps also mutual suspicions and ambitions based on factional and/or provincial divide. The supreme leader not only does not mind such division, he is actively encouraging it. He and his minions are fanning the fire of the religious and provincial strife, even as they hypocritically sing patriotic sons and detain and persecute veteran fighters in the name of unity.

Bereket brings out in the same article what he appears to understand as the hurdle in Eritrea’s politics. Apparently, Eritrean social psychology fears a future without President Isaias. He calls his compatriots to cast away that fear. Again in his own words,

[…] Such concern proceeds on the wrong assumption that the Eritrean people arc incapable of deciding on what to do in the event of his demise or incapacitation. This assumes that there is no one but Isaias to lead the nation, that he single-handedly liberated Eritrea. This is an insult to the leaving veterans and to the martyrs. I am confident that our future leaders, the younger generation of Eritreans, agree with me and reject such wrong assumptions.

Bereket himself of course is not free of the said social psychology. He equivocates between his base and gold metals. His one wish is this: ‘would that I could fly back to Asmara and, with a magic wand, transmute the base metal that Isaias has become to the gold that I thought he was.’ Otherwise, he offers no light to his ‘younger generation of Eritreans’ on how to achieve his other (‘old favorite’) wish. The following is this other wish: ‘Would that the division of the past, which is rearing its ugly heads in various forms, could be transformed to an All Eritrean national movement embracing all segments of Eritrean society.

Dr. Bereket has studiously avoided one elementary truth: The vitality of a nation today resides in the vitality of its democracy and democratic institutions. This truth of course is proscribed in Eritrea’s political dictionary and practice as of the "Fifth Column," Eritrea’s coded and code of hostility towards Ethiopia. One wanders therefore how else the wish for ‘an All Eritrean national movement embracing all segments of Eritrean society’ is to be realized. The failure of the PFDJ project demands, as I see it, a more profound analysis of Eritrea’s political experience rather that wishing away a real crisis.

Nevertheless, Bereket has found, he thinks, a way out of the crisis. His second article presents the ‘magic wand’ that will convert his base metal into gold and thus create and ‘All Eritrea national movement.’ Eritreans need only conjure up. Bereket thinks, the wand of a belligerent Ethiopia to suppress all of their national ills and become united. Since the plain language of the Ethiopian Foreign Minister does not engender such an article, some other design must have caused its authorship.

The temporal distance between the two articles is four days. This is a terribly short period of time of incubation for a crippling political crisis to assume the status of a mere domestic squabble, whatever the strength of the magic wand of a belligerent Ethiopia. I would not engage in assumptions or hypotheses, such as, for instance whether something may or may not have transpired between President Isaias and Dr. Bereket during that terribly short period. I will continue to stick to the facts.

I know for certain that Ethiopia does harbour and has not harboured any hostile intentions towards Eritrea since 1991, let alone play now with a war project. I have also explained that there is nothing in the Foreign Minister’s statement that would suggest Bereket’s assumptions and diatribe contained in his second article.

I think what Bereket says, in this case practically in league with President Isaias, is something else. Despite diplomatic niceties, Bereket is applying pressure to the Boundary Commission by conjuring up the spectre of hostility and war. This is the conclusion I have arrived at from the contents of the article of December 24,2001.

Ignoring all that is laborious, confused, or provocative in the article, Bereket makes the following direct and/or implied claims:

1. The case of Eritrean statehood is one of ‘liberation from colonial occupation and not a cessation [Sic. secession].’

2. The United Nations has accepted Eritrea as a member state.

3. 'Eritrean independence was achieved by military victory, which was later confirmed by a referendum.'

4. The mandate of the boundary commission is to demarcate the boundary between Ethiopia and Eritrea and the commission at The Hague is adjudicating the issue of boundary demarcation.

5. The Algiers peace agreement ‘accepted the boundaries resulting from treaties signed between Ethiopia and Italy. Not to accept the colonial boundaries and the treaties fixing them, or to dispute them, would be tantamount to denying the national sovereignty of Eritrea which Seyoum's government already accepted.’

6. 'The colonial treaties are accompanied by treaty maps as legally binding annexes of the treaty's stipulations. If the Hague tribunal determines that the treaty maps must be the basis of the demarcation, which is expected to do, then the UN cartographers will go to the ground and correlate those maps to the ground. And that should be the end of it. You cannot argue against that anymore than you can argue that two and two make four [emphasis added].

7. The 'arbitral tribunal [meaning the boundary commission] sitting at The Hague' cannot be influenced, whatever the clamours of the Ethiopians, 'to reverse the historic fait accompli of Eritrean and territorial integrity achieved with so much sacrifice. (This point was written in a rhetorical question form, and I hope I have not changed its meaning by turning it round.) Then follows the appalling conclusion, which I have already quoted at the beginning of this article.

I personally accept that the case of Eritrea is that of a former Italian colony of Eritrea. It had waged a long war against the fact of its integration with Ethiopia before it emerged as the independent state of Eritrea through the referendum of 1993. Ethiopia recognizes, as has the rest of the world, the re-emergence of the former Italian colony of Eritrea as the independent state of Eritrea. This is the conviction and the position of the Ethiopian State and government today. In terms of title, Bereket can thus assure himself of his Assab, to which he inadvertently made impertinent, apparently desired to be provocative, references in his article.

Apparently, Bereket is not saying the point I have made. His appeal to military victory and the referendum is so ambiguous that it does not lend itself to a particular interpretation. He has also empowered himself to limit the international mandate, accepted by Eritrea, of the boundary commission to mere demarcation of an otherwise boundary or boundaries already indisputably established by treaty maps.

Bereket commits two gross mistakes unbecoming of a mature and well-educated person. The pertinent treaties are three, signed in 1900, 1902, and 1908. The first treaty has an annexed sketch map, which is explicitly an integral part of the treaty text and therefore binding on both parties. The second and the third treaties (1902 and 1908) have no accompanying maps, be it illustrative or binding. Yet, Bereket is categorical that '[the colonial treaties are accompanied by treaty maps as legally binding annexes of the treaty's stipulations.' Is this deliberate mischief, or ignorance of the facts?

Secondly, the mandate of the commission is clearly and definitively spelt out in the Algiers peace agreement of December 12,2002. The commission is mandated to delimit and demarcate the colonial treaty border based on pertinent colonial treaties and applicable international law. The parties to the dispute, Ethiopia and Eritrea, have also agreed that the 'pertinent colonial treaties' consistent of the treaties of 1900, 1902 and 1908. The commission clearly does not concern itself with political considerations. This is the fundamental point that the Ethiopian minister of foreign affaires emphasized in his statement. However, Bereket refers only to demarcation. Is this deliberate, mischief, or ignorance of the facts?

Given the factual corrections, I completely agree with Bereket, if he did really mean it, that the verdict of the commission if final. The parties have bound themselves in an internationally guaranteed agreement to accept and implement the decision of the commission. There is no possibility for opting out, and, to borrow Bereket's words, 'that should be the end of it. You can not argue against that anymore than you can argue that two and two are four.'

I know, I may agree with Bereket but he did not mean to agree with me. He may find it even offensive that he finds himself in agreement with me. I have reasons to think so. He writes "the Hague process" for the peace process. He misrepresents the treaties, referring to treaty maps while there is only one sketch map accompanying one of the treaties. He has engaged in editing the mandate of the boundary commission. He does not accord the commission its proper name, and not even a word that it consists of eminent personalities. There is the appeal to military victory and the referendum.

Then, there is his concept of the historic fait accompli of Eritrean and territorial integrity achieved with so much sacrifice.' Finally, the re is his conclusion, the kernel of which needs to be re-quoted: "…But no Eritrean believes that, in view of the experiences of the 1998-2000 war and its causes, we should let our guards down. On the contrary, despite some of our internal differences with the government, this is one issue on which we stand united. Let no one mistake our current squabbles, which is an internal affair, as a sign of division where the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Eritrea is concerned.'

Clearly, Bereket's article excludes hostility and threats of hostilities. In the person of Bereket, Eritrea id thus applying pressure in public on the boundary commissions. To this extent the article is an exercise in tactical insinuations. Eritreans are, if they were to rely on Bereket, misinformed> There is a provocative, not so subtle, attempt to see suspicion, doubt, and discord in the ranks of Ethiopians it goes beyond tactical insinuations, however.

Bereket puts Ethiopians the world and us on notice of another round of Eritrean military adventure if the boundary commission effectively carries out its international mandate. Bereket's convoluted arguments, gross factual misrepresentations, inept characterization of Ethiopian politics, imputations, and diplomatic niceties as they are the same time so many tactical institutions and cover ups to hoodwink Eritreans and Ethiopians unlike. Eritrea remains aggressive.

I hope that I have misunderstood Bereket. I am an optimist, instinctively and consciously. If the Eritrean regime still harbors aggressive designs on Ethiopia, however, it should be put on notice: The consequences of another Eritrean adventure will be incalculable for Eritrea. The dividend for Ethiopians and Eritreans in peace not in war. The peace process must succeed, however bitter the decision of the Boundary Commission may be to any of the parties, Ethiopia and Eritrea.