Eritrea and the increasingly multifaceted challenges in the Horn of Africa

The well-understood humanitarian aid can not be put in place in the future provided that “soft power” outweighs the “warmonger”

Eritrea: a small country closed on itself and poor

Eritrea is not the most important country of those traditionally included in the Horn of Africa: just over 6 million people, unequally distributed over 117 000 km2 for GNP per capita (less than 500 Dollars).

It is highly indebted and one of the poorest countries in the world. An almost continuous flow of migrants from this country are fleeing the dictatorship of its president Issayas Afeworki in power since independence recovered in 1993.
The weak regional integration of the country, although it is a member of the African Union and the IGAD (Regional Organization based in Djibouti) is explained in part by a participation in these organizations hardly active and confirms its relative isolation.

Indeed, it also stopped cooperation with the EU and UN agencies for a while and sent foreign NGOs back in December 2011, to reconsider its decision in July 2012.

The process of democratization, begun in 1997 with the adoption of a constitution, came to an abrupt halt in the 1998/2000 conflict with Ethiopia’s big neighbor. The latter seems to have been until recently the scapegoat and has been used to divert a resigned and disenchanted Eritrean population.

Eritrea, however, has long been a symbol of resistance to the dictator Mengistu, the “Red Négus” then ruled over Ethiopia / Eritrea (1974/1991). However, in the last two decades, freedoms have been seriously eroded, religious freedom controlled (about 50% of Eritreans are Muslims, 30% Orthodox and 13% Catholic, the rest being divided between Protestants, Seventh-day Adventists, witnesses of Jehovah, Buddhists etc.).

The shift of Sunni-Shiite conflicts on African soil and American complacency allowed Eritrea to find a role, indirectly, on the regional scene. The policy of the Trump administration in the Horn region is yet to be determined; conversely, the interest of the Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, more offensive and willing to have military facilities to better control and hit Yemen. Indeed, while Eritrea consists of high plateaus in the North and a narrow coastal strip of desert, it is on this coast that there are two major ports: Assab and Massawa, the other two are further downstream: that of Djibouti (including the oil and gas port of Dor Ali) and Berbera in Somaliland.

Adding the port of Aden to the far south of Yemen, all these ports are ideally placed either at the entrance of the Red Sea, via the Suez Canal, or at its exit, via the Strait of Bab El Mandel (the door of the tears), they therefore benefit from the fallout of all the legal trades (and those which are less) of hydrocarbons and goods and this, at the regional level between the countries of the Arabian peninsula, than international, relay points between Asia and Europe.

Long isolated, in “quarantine” policy, the Eritrean ports of Assab and Massawa were deliberately neglected by the great powers while they could have benefited economic benefits expected during the installation of American bases in the Horn at the end of the 1990s. However, the “State Department” opposed it, against the wish of the strategists of the Pentagon: the latter not wishing that the US show their support for a dictatorship which moreover had committed the indelicacy to put two journalists Americans in prison. As a result, Djibouti was chosen to host US troops to monitor the area, including launching drone operations against identified terrorists in Yemen.

The changes in the relations between the countries of the region and the renewed interest in the ports of Massawa and Assab could allow Eritrea to regain a foothold in the regional game, provided, on the one hand, that its president commits himself not once again in conflicts with one or other of its neighbors and, secondly, to implement the indispensable political and economic reforms requested by the EU. This, by means of financial assistance, inter alia to stop or reduce the uninterrupted flow of emigration of part of its population; and this, in a context of “presence” increasingly marked either regional actors (Gulf countries), or more distant actors (such as Japan and especially China and India) that scramble even more cards an area where the “fighting sultans” are able to cross the iron at any occasion

I) Difficult relationships with neighbors. Eritrea: on the podium of the fighting sultans

A) A recent independent country in permanent conflict with its neighbors

The Eritrean leaders are among the most engaged in conflicts with their neighbors and first with their “brother” country, the great Ethiopia, an Italian colony from 1880 to 1941, Eritrea was reincorporated into the Ethiopian fold by a resolution of United Nations of 1952. However, rather quickly Eritreans will be in the front line with their Tigrayan cousins, which have come mostly from Ethiopian leaders for ages, in an armed struggle against the bloody regime of the DERG of the “Red Negus” Mengistu (1974/1991). Supported by US aid that came via Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, the rebels defeated the Mengistu regime, backed by the Soviets and their Cuban allies, for Eritrea, which was recovering its independence, a new era seemed to open.

1) A throbbing conflict with Ethiopia

The border war (1998/2000, about 100,000 dead) caused by a dispute over the border crossing in the agglomeration of Badme, was to mark the beginning of this hidden war between these two countries.

Today’s Ethiopia has been left without direct access to the sea. This new situation has not helped to improve the already execrable relations between the two neighbors, even though Ethiopia has more than 130,000 Eritrean refugees on its soil (Ethiopia is, with 780,000 refugees on its soil, the African country that hosts the most), the skirmishes are also sensitive diplomatically: a UN resolution in 2011 condemns Eritrea in its support for terrorism. All this militates that the Ethiopian leaders are convinced that Eritrea is a bridgehead for the establishment of Arab countries (Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other emirates) in the Horn. This partly explains the temporary resumption of armed hostilities between Ethiopia and Eritrea in June 2016 thus breaking the Algiers agreements of 12 December 2000, the fragility of which is proof of this. On the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the Algiers Agreement, EU Vice-President Mogherini called on the parties to the EEBC (Ethiopian Erithrean Border Commission) in a statement of 13 April 2017 to respect all conditions of the agreement.

2) Mistrust and conflicts with Djibouti

The relations are not more serene with Djibouti, especially since the border conflict of June 2008, conflict for the control of Cape Doumera. Following an agreement between the two parties, Qatari troops played on the disputed zone, the role of peacekeepers, cordon sanitaire between the two countries until the autumn of 2017. Djibouti, populated by Issas (branch Somalis) and Afars (who also populate part of Eritrea and Ethiopia) also deplored the support given by the Eritrean government to the Afiboutian Afars in revolt during the 1994 civil war. does not arrange relations between Asmara and Djibouti.

3) Episodic conflicts with other neighbors

With its other neighbors, Eritrea does not maintain a warm relationship with Yemen reunited in 1990, but effectively in 1994, and with Sudan, (Eritrea being suspected of helping the Sudanese rebellion). Relations between the two countries, after a break in diplomatic relations in 2002, have resumed since 2006.

Nevertheless, and unexpectedly, Eritrea could partially emerge from its current isolation thanks to what is happening in the Arabian Peninsula (military intervention of the Gulf Cooperation Council in Yemen), an intervention which enjoys the tacit support of the United States. United and more broadly, spillover from the Sunni Shiite conflict (Saudi Arabia) (Iran).

This new situation may have an impact on the one hand on the current “monopoly” of Djibouti in the “hub”, the reception (paying) of foreign forces of all kinds on its soil (India is also planning to place some “pawns” in Djibouti so as not to let his great Asian rival, China to distance him in the race relay port along the sea routes) and secondly on Ethiopia who could reconsider its alliances including with the United States United, for the benefit of China more and more present.

Russia, for its part, remains attentive, while the former dominant powers (Great Britain and France) are somewhat marginalized and reduced to a role of relative influence over the leaders of the region, particularly within the EU whose “soft” approach is struggling to break despite indisputable successes in terms of deterrence at sea (significant reduction of Somali pirates’ actions, operation Atalanta etc.)

B)  Conflicts in the Arabian Peninsula: an unexpected “positive” effect for Eritrea

1) Overflowing conflict in Yemen on African soil

Saudi’s military campaign against Yemeni rebels “Houthis” (Iranian-backed Zaydi Shiites), which began in early 2015, has been a boon for the Eritrean president. The latter hastened to sign, as early as April of the same year, a cooperation agreement with the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and at the key, the construction of an airport at Assab, from which the Saudi bombers can take off for their operations in Yemen “enemy” of Eritrea just like Sudan who dispatched a contingent of troops to strengthen those of the Saudi. The presence of the Arab Gulf, with the blessing of the Americans who continue to send their drones to Yemen from Djibouti, could have a favorable impact on the Erythean economy drained and at the same time reduce the waves of migrants who flee to Europe.

2) The soft power of the EU to the test 

The EU, faithful to its values, strives through its assistance programs to help developing or crisis-ridden countries, while combining the said programs with actions and initiatives aimed at better controlling migratory flows, including fighting against traffickers of human beings (smugglers); all this by promoting projects to encourage young people not to emigrate: “EU Horn of Africa Regional Action Plan 2015/2020” is supposed to cover the first part while the second part is part of the “Valetta Political Declaration” of November 2015 followed the so-called Khartoum and Rabat processes and more recently the Valletta summit of February 2017. The main objective is to fight against illegal emigration.

Yet, Eritrea is a massive “purveyor” of illegal migrants who use various routes to reach Europe mainly, or even Israel, knowing that the majority of migrants remain on African soil and in neighboring countries.
These waves of migrants have successively taken the path of Yemen (now closed) and from 2006 to 2012 the one transiting through Sudan (there are 125,000 Eritrean refugees) and Egypt (which has implemented a policy of “pulling to kill “communicated to his police force) to reach Israel (the latter has, meanwhile, implemented an anti-infiltration policy by closing its border with Egypt) and especially Europe, which they now join by Libya and where they constitute the second largest group of refugees.

In its € 200 million co-operation program signed in 2016 by the EU, it is planned, among other things, to provide poorly-targeted energy sector support and other incentives for the implementation of economic and social structural reforms.

The Eritrean authorities are expected, in return, to reform the political and social life of Eritrea; what is particularly targeted is the disastrous military service for life, actually an average of 10 years anyway, during which all kinds of bullying are applied to recruits who only want to escape this hell.

This military service in its current form is the main incentive for young Eritreans to emigrate, but it is clear that the results of the EU’s soft pressure have produced little success so far; a finding shared by the Saudis who are gradually settling in Eritrea and who could be both a provider of funds for the Eritrean government and a brake on liberalization while encouraging “Wahhabi” proselytism whose effects for the least questionable, in different areas, are no longer to be demonstrated.

C) This Arab presence in Africa is to follow and it worries the enemies of Eritrea like Ethiopia and Djibouti in the lead for various reasons.

1) Djibouti fears the loss of its monopoly as a “hub” and Ethiopia replaces France as guarantor of the security on land of “pebble”

Until recently, the Djiboutian president (Isamel Omar Guelleh or IOG) managed to make this small territory prosper thanks to a system of “tolls” for foreign troops. He managed to protect his “pebble” from the devastating conflicts that have raged or raged around Djibouti (he did not agree to join the coalition of the Gulf countries against Yemen but he did, however, approve that Saudi transport planes land in Djibouti).

The French troops, historically present since 1883, have for their part ensured the security of the small republic coveted by its powerful neighbors.

The Americans, meanwhile, arrived in the late 1990s with $ 30 million annual rental bases (60 million today) then there were German contingents, Spanish and Italian in the various actions of fight against terrorism and piracy. There are also the Japanese who for 20 million Euros a year have established their first and modest base outside Japan since the end of the Second World War. In the meantime, in need of financing, the Djiboutians have entrusted the management of their port, the airport and the new terminal to the Dubai Port Authority; this agreement was not renewed in 2013 following Dubai’s refusal to extradite a politico-political opponent, Mr. Boreh, a well-known businessman in the region. However, it turns out that the latter would be the instigator of the surprise deal of May 2016; an agreement stipulating that the port of Berbera in Somaliland will be managed by the Dubai Port Authority, a port used in addition by Ethiopia, Djibouti being the first port of entry and exit of goods from Ethiopia. Feeling the wind turn, President Guelleh who is a “Somali” (Issa) born in Dire Dawa in Ethiopia and who knows his big neighbor, was eager to sign an agreement in early May 2016 with Ethiopia allowing Ethiopian troops to intervene at any time in the Republic of Djibouti (use existing facilities, settle internal conflicts etc ..). Since June 2016, they are actually stationed in Tajourah (in Afar territory and not far from the border with Eritrea and the future Chinese base). Ethiopia seems to be getting closer to its objectives, namely to control Djibouti de facto.

2) China continues to establish strategic locations for maritime traffic control

In its willingness to receive foreign troops for a fee, China should also gain a foothold in the Republic of Djibouti. It is only recently that they plan to set up a military base in Tajourah, still in the Afar and Tajourah area where Ethiopian troops have recently been stationed. Several thousand Chinese could find a place, a built airstrip and a plane carrier, all can bring in the passage several tens of millions of Euros in Djibouti according to the chosen formula. One can only note thus the “lengthening” of the system of presence of the Chinese who have progressively pushed their pawns into the South China Sea (Spratleys Islands) and now place themselves in another strategic zone for the control of international maritime traffic. between Europe, Asia and the Red Sea.

3) Russians and Iranians in waiting position 

Russians and Iranians are relatively unobtrusive in this area. The Iranians, in addition to their support for the Syrian regime, the Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemeni Zaydi-Houthis, have some maps in the Gulf either in Bahrain (80% Shiite) or the Shia minority living in the east of the Saudi kingdom (between 1 and 2 million people). The Russians have for some time, established on their side, contacts in Djibouti but it is another factor, religious this one, which could involve them again more in the Horn and its stakes.

II) A redistribution of the cards against a backdrop of political instability in the countries of the Horn and the rise of regional actors in the Arab world and of course of China

It is clear that since 2016, we have witnessed an acceleration in the positioning of some and the repositioning of others: the Americans seem rather willing to see their “friends” Gulf, Saudi Arabia in mind, settle in the ground African and Eritrea; the latter can hope for a saving economic return. Ethiopians and, to a lesser extent, Djiboutians are unhappy with this turn of events, particularly Ethiopia, which until now has been totally supported by the Americans and who have been surrounded more than ever by hostile Muslim countries or political actors. In these circumstances, a lasting rapprochement between Ethiopia and China can not be ruled out. The Americans and their Sunni Gulf allies would move away from Djibouti to the Eritrean ports of Assab and Massawa and to a lesser extent to Berbera in Somaliland, with Ethiopians and Chinese settling more in Djibouti (including Tadjourah). Finally, it should be borne in mind that the economic and social situation in most countries of the Horn is fragile (South Sudan, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia) and increasingly tense (South Sudan and Ethiopia since mid-2016). ) and that this instability is not good news from the point of view of migrations of people in disarray.

A) Water, a major source of potential conflict

The fight for water and its control is strong in the Middle East. It is also so in the Horn and it has become more acute since the Sunni Arabs of the Gulf are gaining footholds on the Eritrean coast. In turn Assab’s facilities could be used by the Egyptian air force (Egypt supports the coalition of the Gulf countries against the rebels “Houthis”) including against Ethiopia if it implements “and in water” the Renaissance dam on the Blue Nile, three times the capacity of the Aswan Dam. Israel has long been opposed to any development of the Nile (dams, reservoirs) upstream of Egypt fearing that these changes will reduce the water availability of Egypt which would cause unrest in the country that could have problems. impact on Israel’s security.

Subsequently, Israel has changed its mind, aware that economic and social development is a factor of peace but now it is Egypt that is recovering from the hair of the beast, with the stronger presence of the Gulf monarchies. in the region and in Eritrea in particular (about a century ago, Egypt experienced a brief armed conflict with Eritrea over a water problem). Faced with the threat trumpeted by the Egyptians of a destruction of the dam by force, Ethiopians could be tempted by a preemptive strike against Egypt at the risk of attracting the wrath of the Gulf countries and Egypt together which brings us to another factor of friction, that of religion.

B) The religious factor

During a visit to Moscow, about fifteen years ago, the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles (who fought against the DERG regime supported by Soviet Russia at the time) Patriarch Alexis made sure that Russia Putin helps his Orthodox brothers against Islamists in Somalia operating in the region of the Ethiopian Ogaden (funded by Saudi Arabia) and indeed, support was provided in equipment but also in pilots (Ukrainian in particular!) For the small In 1889, ataman Atchinoff and his 150 cavalry monks briefly settled in the Afar country of Djibouti, with the “mission” of merging the Russian Orthodox Church with the Coptic Church of Ethiopia.

During a visit to Moscow, about fifteen years ago, the Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles (who fought against the DERG regime supported by Soviet Russia at the time) Patriarch Alexis made sure that Russia Putin helps his Orthodox brothers against Islamists in Somalia operating in the region of the Ethiopian Ogaden (funded by Saudi Arabia) and indeed, support was provided in equipment but also in pilots (Ukrainian in particular!) For the small In 1889, ataman Atchinoff and his 150 cavalry monks briefly settled in the Afar country of Djibouti, with the “mission” of merging the Russian Orthodox Church with the Coptic Church of Ethiopia. Control or absence, which can be extended to migratory flows.

The countries of the Horn, including Eritrea, are part of this multi-dimensional puzzle. Depending on their orientation, their priorities, their current alliances with other countries (Eritrea, Sudan or even Egypt), they will be able to follow the EU’s recommendations or engage more in a “warlike” way with the active assent of the EU. Gulf Arabs even that, unspoken Americans. It is also through the religious prism that it is necessary to follow the evolution of the political situation in Qatar; in the case of a change in the political leadership of that emirate, Saudi Arabia would like to install “Wahabite” leaders, while the Turks (mostly Sunni-based) would support the mainstream of the “Muslim Brotherhood” with tacit support. and circumstance of Iran with Shia majority.

It is a delicate choice because it is a bet that the other actors they are regional (Ethiopia with its appendix of Djibouti) or outside the horn, (China, Russia in particular and finally Iran, in the context of Yemeni conflict,) will not remain the weapon on foot. This significant risk of armed conflict would not be at regional level obviously not conducive to the delivery of humanitarian aid; this last point, the time needed to allow countries, bruised populations to start on a good basis is largely conditioned by the ability of supporters of “soft power” (EU, AU including the sovereign order of malta, plus modestly but with great determination and conviction,) to bring the other protagonists to their sight.

Yves Gazzo
Chairman, Académie des Sciences d’Outre-Mer
Ambassador, Representative of the Sovereign Order of Malta to European Union

The author was non-resident EU Ambassador to Yemen from 1994 to 1998, residing in Jordan,

EU ambassador to Ethiopia accredited to Djibouti from 2001 to 2003 (in Ethiopia he carried out missions in 1983 and for a year and a half he led an EU mission of economic reconstruction of Ethiopia post DERG, 1992/1993 and started the same task in Eritrea in December 1992).