BADA: Further Background Information Concerning the Eritrean Invasion of Ethiopia
Wray Witten, JD MPA
November 1998
Eritrea's leaders repeatedly have described a series of three Justifications for their choice in May 1998 of a military invasion of areas peacefully administered by Ethiopia as the means for settling disputes with Ethiopia.
The three justifications Eritrea cites are:
1) a military action by Ethiopian government forces in the Bada area of the Afar depression in July of 1997 (the "Bada incident");
2) publication in 1997 by the State of Tigray of a map of the state differing from other maps by a curved rather than a straight border line through the Badime plain between the Merab River and Tekeze River (the "map issue"); and
3) border dispute events on the Badime plain which occurred between May 6 and May 12, 1998 (the "May 6 events"). Of these three [see Endnotes regarding 2) and 3)], the following research focuses on the "Bada incident" because Eritrea's description of it makes it sound significant:
"The first forcible act of creating facts on the ground occurred in July 1997 when Ethiopia, under the pretext of fighting the Afar opposition, brought two battalions to Bada (Adi Murug) in southwestern [sic] Eritrea to occupy the village and dismantle the Eritrean administration there."
From this ambiguous Eritrean description a reader might mistakenly envision a peaceful civilian government actively running schools and clinics, suddenly torn asunder by military invasion. But, given Eritrea's recent record of misleading statements about Badime, we must be concerned that Eritrea may again be misleading us in describing the Bada incident in this ambiguous manner. Eritrea appears to be trying to make the Bada incident sound as much as possible like Eritrea's well-documented invasion of the Badime area.
In Badime Eritrea destroyed a peaceful Ethiopian civilian administration, assassinated the elected civilian administrators, and intentionally destroyed at least one school and clinic. Is that what happened in Bada, as Eritrea implies? Conversely, if this is not what happened, then why is the
Incident so important?
I could not immediately answer these questions because I do not have the same kind of first-hand knowledge of the Afar area that my wife and I have of the Tigray area. Instead, I have had to spend some time meeting and interviewing peripatetic Afar elders who know the Bada area well and some of the few foreigners who have visited the area from the Eritrean side.
Now, once again, as with Eritrea's misleading statements about its invasion of the Badime area, the facts of the Bada incident consistently found in interviews reveal a very different picture than that presented by Eritrea's statements and demonstrate how misleading Eritrea's statements about Bada are.
To understand the actual situation, it is important to realize that "Bada" is both the name of a large remote inhospitable below-sea-level plain and the name of a group of four villages located on the edge of the plain. The area occupied by these four villages is like an oasis at the foot of the highlands
and foothills, irrigated for farming with the waters of a large Wadi [aseasonal river] that arises in the highlands to the southwest, locally known as Wadi Kabuia. No doubt significantly, "Bada" means "hot" in the local Afar language.
I do not know where the border between Eritrea and Ethiopia in this area may have been, should be, or will be. Those questions should be settled by an appropriate means of dispute resolution, not war. However, in interviews most people do say Wadi Kabuia was the border during the Italian colonization of Eritrea. They cite as evidence a stone marker erected by the Italians on the northeastern bank of the Wadi that said "CONFINI", since torn down by the Eritreans. In talking about the area local people refer to the "Eritrean side of the Wadi" and the "Ethiopian side", a convention I will repeat below.
The four towns of the irrigated area are built two on either side of the Wadi, with Ad'Murug (also spelled Adi Murug) and EriMillea a ways from the southwestern or "Ethiopian side" and Bollali and LaenBada on the northeastern or "Eritrean side".
In Ad'Murug a school and a clinic were built in 1963 (1955 Ethiopian Calendar) by Ras Mengesha Seyoum, then Governor of Tigray under Emperor Haile Selassie. That part of the Afar Depression was at the time included in the Tigray administrative region. In 1974 the Derg, a military dictatorship,
Overthrew the Emperor and shortly thereafter the popular struggle to overthrow the Derg began. From the late 1970's to about 1989, the town of Ad'Murug was administered by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). During the same period the Eritrean side towns were administered by one or the other of the Eritrean liberation forces--the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) or
Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF).
During its administration of Ad'Murug the TPLF operated both the school and clinic built by Ras Mengesha. The TPLF also provided a forum for the traditional irrigators from both sides of the Wadi to change the fractious traditional allocation of irrigation water. The new allocation of water between the users on the two sides of the Wadi took into account the fact that more of the irrigated land lay northeast of the Wadi, resulting in an agreement to divide the water "75% for the Eritrean side and 25% for the Ethiopian side".
In 1989, the TPLF and EPLF forces embarked on their final push towards Addis Ababa and the successful defeat of the Derg, and left the Bada area undefended. Immediately, two guerrilla forces took over the Bada area, the Afar National Liberation Front (ANLF) and the Afar Revolutionary Democratic Front (ARDF, commonly know as "Gugma"). ANLF and Gugma were forces of the
Afar independence movement, which seeks to unite all the Afar lands including those in Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Eritrea up to Massawa. Basic Afar unity, it may be understood, was particularly threatened by Eritrean independence and EPLF suppression of ethnic national identities. In 1991, the newly established Transitional Government of Ethiopia and the soon-to-be-voted- independent government of Eritrea set out--amidst a great many other more central undertakings--to regain control of the Bada area.
Thus, from 1991 to July 1997 the Bada area was effectively a "restricted" military area, with the ANLF and Gugma guerillas frequently fighting both Ethiopian and Eritrean military forces, Eritrea pressing them from the north and Ethiopia pressing them from the south. Because of this, for example, two foreigners who strayed near the area from the Ethiopian side were arrested in 1996. I myself was detained in 1996 in Sheket, 100 kilometers to the south. And a group of Italian tourists who strayed into the area from the Red Sea coast had to be rescued from Gugma by administrators from Tigray traveling together with some of the Afar elders I have interviewed.
Under these circumstances, what kind of "administration" was there in the Bada area between 1991 and July 1997? In fact, neither Ethiopian nor Eritrean forces were able to create a sufficiently secure environment in the village of Ad'Murug for regular government services because of the frequent fighting. Added to this, in what has come to seem like standard Eritrean military procedure, Eritrean military forces took all the equipment from the Ad'Murug school and clinic on a foray into the area soon after 1991. The Ad'Murug school and clinic did not operate between then and July 1997.
The irrigated farms continued to operate, however, as resilient private enterprises often do under such circumstances. And at some point, probably in 1996, the Eritrean government undertook to repair and improve the irrigation structures. But the Gugma destroyed the work. After that the irrigation facilities were maintained and operated only by the farmers' traditional non-governmental irrigators' associations.
The local markets also continued to operate. But, significantly, Gugma collected the only taxes on the trades. Furthermore, many traders would leave whenever fighting started. As for other government investment, the roads into the area were, for example, not much more than hard-to-see tracks.
>From these facts, it appears most accurate to state that in July 1997 the village of Ad'Murug in the remote Bada area was an unstable place with few if any government services due to frequent fighting between government forces and Gugma, which neither Ethiopian or Eritrean forces had been able to bring completely under control. This is far from the situation implied by Eritrea's statements.
It was only in July 1997, as a result of the "Bada incident", that Ethiopia finally was successful in coming to terms with Gugma through a combination of military force and negotiations. During the final military engagement, the Ethiopian troops moved forward and the Eritrean troops retreated in a
coordinated manner, in order to avoid accidental clashes between Eritrean and Ethiopian troops. This had been the practice of both forces in the preceding years, as is referenced in the exchange of letters between the heads of state of Eritrea and Ethiopia at the time. Significantly, for almost a year after
the incident, Eritrea did not refer to this military action as a justification for war. Just as it had not taken previous similar Ethiopian military actions in the same area as justifications for war.
Finally, it is important to point out that the Ethiopian forces that succeeded in establishing a peace with the Gugma in July 1997 subsequently withdrew from the Bada area. The entire Bada area, including the village of Ad'Murug is today under the administration of the Eritrean government.
Thus, the facts demonstrate that the picture painted by Eritrean statements about the "Bada incident"- that invading Ethiopians "dismantle[d] the Eritrean administration there"--is another illusion. But by this subterfuge Eritrea's leaders curried national and international acceptance of their "justification"
for invading Badime.
It is today heartening to see new recognition of the true facts about Eritrea's invasion of the Badime area and, based on that recognition, recent EU and UN Security Council support for the OAU Framework Agreement which would require Eritrea to withdraw its invading troops to pre-May 6 positions. But,in large part because of Eritrea's misleading description of the Bada incident, some people still harbor a false sense that Ethiopia is somehow to blame for Eritrea's invasion. This false sense causes them to continue treating Eritrea too gently.
I have always stated that in the face of international tolerance of Eritrea's aggression I expected Ethiopia would eventually fall back on self-help and use offensive military action to end Eritrea's invasion. It has always been my primary goal to contribute what I could to avoidance of such a war, in
Support of development. I believe that is also the goal of the Ethiopian government and the reason it has so far taken defensive but not offensive actions. But we all know that unpunished wrongs--whether in a family, a society, or between nations--engender self-help responses--people righting wrongs themselves. One fundamental goal of civilization is to minimize unpunished wrongs in order to promote peace and prosperity. Thus, I see it as the obligation of the international community, such as it is at this time in the world's history, to help Ethiopia avoid self-help by putting adequate pressure
on Eritrea to cause it to comply with the standards of acceptable behavior embodied in the OAU Framework Agreement, particularly the requirement that Eritrea withdraw its troops before negotiations may begin.
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ENDNOTES:
Briefly, regarding the "map issue", so many conflicting maps exist that it is hard to accept the publication of one more as a reasonable justification of war. In fact, Eritrea published a map of Eritrea in 1993 that located inside Eritrea some areas then administered by Ethiopia, such as Erob Alateina, as
well as Ad'Murug. Ethiopia did not take that as an act of war. Both countries simply noted that there were border areas in dispute and eventually they created the bilateral commission to resolve them. Meanwhile each country went about the important business of rebuilding and developing. As did Eritrea for more than six months after the map of Tigray was published in 1997.
It is equally difficult to accept the "May 6 events" in the Badime area as a justification for war. Though local Ethiopian militias were certainly present along the border (because in every Ethiopian village local men are selected by the people to be armed and to serve as a rural police force, some even
With uniforms), contrary to Eritrea's current--and revised--statements there Were no Ethiopian military units in the area. Given the history of the border dispute it seems quite probable that there was very simply "just another border incident" like many before it: people from both sides of the disputed border argued hotly and shot at each other (which is why both sides had previously agreed not to bring weapons into the other's administrative areas) and some people--very regrettably--died. In order to try to stop just this sort of thing Eritrea and Ethiopia had created the bilateral commission to settle once and for all their borders. It is hard to take seriously the Eritrean claim that yet another such event could justify a military invasion by Eritrea at the very time when the bilateral commission was meeting.