Gitau Mutuma

Nairobi, 18 May 2007 - Whenever Ethiopia sneezes in the Horn of Africa - comprising Djibouti, Eritrea and Somalia - the region catches a cold.

Ethiopia's location in the Horn of Africa is strategic. It's a landlocked country with a land area of approximately 1.2 million square kilometres. The manifold linkages between Ethiopia and its neighbours in the Horn have an important bearing on conflict dynamics within Ethiopia itself and in the region.

Ethiopia's long and complicated border has been a flashpoint for conflict on many occasions. For example, the precise demarcation of its northern border with Eritrea for instance, is a continuing source of conflict between the two countries, with Ethiopia having rejected the results of international arbitration she considers to have favoured Eritrea.

It's difficult to make a clear distinction between the conflicts arising within Ethiopia and the conflicts with neighbouring countries.

Bases in Somalia

For instance, the Somali rebel movements in the Ogaden region also have bases in Somalia, thus sometimes causing confusion. Is theirs is a struggle to secede and join Somalia, thus fulfilling her expansionist dreams, or a struggle for a greater share of resources within the Ethiopian polity?

To date, Ethiopia has been involved in two interstate conflicts, with Somalia to the east and Eritrea to the north. Officially, both conflicts were rooted in competing territorial claims.

The sources of the Ethiopia-Somalia war in the 1970s date back to the colonial period when the Somali people were divided between Somalia, Somaliland, Kenya, Ethiopia and Djibouti. Following the establishment of the Somali Republic in 1960, the government of Somalia claimed the Ogaden region that was under Ethiopian administration in its quest to consolidate the different Somali clans under one Somali nation.

Somalia attacked, initially occupying most of the Ogaden and penetrated further into other towns in the eastern part of Ethiopia but eventually was defeated by Ethiopia with the military aid of the Soviet Union.

Competing claims

Tense relations have existed between Ethiopia and Somalia since the war ended in 1978. Currently, Ethiopia's troops are in Mogadishu to help prop up the Transitional Federal Government against insurgents of the Union of Islamic Courts who openly espouse the return of the Ogaden region.

Although boundary conflict and nationalist fervour were the sources of the conflict between Ethiopia and Somalia, access to and control of resources were closely related to competing claims to the Ogaden.

The immediate cause of the Ethio-Eritrean conflict was over a contested border. However, many assert that the real cause of conflict between the two countries goes beyond the border dispute and can be traced to the prior relationship between the two governments.

Before coming to power, the Tigrean Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), which is the dominant party in the present ruling party, the Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), and the Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front (EPLF), were allied in armed opposition to Chairman Mengistu Haile Mariam's Dergue.

Eritrea gained independence through a referendum in 1993 that was supported by the present government.

Throughout the period prior to the border dispute, relations between the two governments were cordial . They went sour in 1997 when the Eritrean government introduced its own currency, the Nakfa.

This prompted Ethiopia to rule that trade between the two countries should be in hard currencies like US dollars. Controversy also emerged over procedures and charges in the Eritrean ports of Massawa and Assab.

Consequently, Ethiopia found it expeditious to import oil products and other goods through the port of Djibouti instead of subsidising the refinery in Assab.

Ethiopia and Eritrea have now found a new theatre to continue their spurring in the Somali civil war. Ethiopia supports the current government while Eritrea supports the insurgents. And although the Somali government, with the support of Ethiopian troops, seems to have won the day, the conflict is far from over. Ethiopia also accuses Eritrea of supporting various rebel groups currently battling the Ethiopian government.

Favoured groups

Ethiopia also has to reckon with conflict among various groups within its borders. For instance, a highland agricultural economy was imposed on the Afars in the Awash Basin, but the development in the Basin has favoured commercial farmers and state partners rather than the interests of the Afar pastoralists.

The internal conflicts also stem from the marginalisation of some groups by a state that monopolises control over the production and distribution of resources.

By holding such power over resource distribution, the state has the ability to favour some groups- historically the Amhara and Tigray ruling elite - while discriminating against other groups, such as the Oromo and Somali. This explains why dissidence and rebellion have flourished among the two groups.

Mr Muthuma is a lecturer in Communication

Source: The Nation