Review of events in Ethiopia

US Department of State Bulletin, August, 1988

Following are statements by Chester Crocker, Assistant Secretary for African Affairs; Richard Williamson, Assistant Secretary for International Organization Affairs; and Charles Gladson, Assistant Administrator, Bureau for Africa, Agency for International Development.

APRIL 21, 1988

Joint statement by Assistant Secretaries Crocker and Williamson and Assistant Administrator Gladson before the Subcommittees on Africa and on Human Rights and International Organizations of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs..sup.1

We welcome the opportunity to meet with the subcommittees today to review the status of events in Ethiopia arising from expanded civil war in the north and its impact on international relief activities. Let us note from the outset that this has been a rapidly evolving issue. We have moved quickly on many relief, diplomatic, and political fronts because of the seriousness of the threat to starving people and of the need to find quick solutions. We were pleased with the mission to Ethiopia by UN Under Secretary General Ahtisaari and will be reviewing matters with the United Nations later this week. I wish I could be optimistic, but overall the relief situation remains very troublesome and our prognosis is not encouraging.

As the committee is well aware, the roots of the problem lie not so much in weather as in war and poor agricultural policies. The internal polities of northern Ethiopia have festered for decades with various groups spouting a plethora of largely Marxist ideologies. In the past 10 years, however, when the Mengistu regime opted for confrontation rather than accommodation with northern dissidents, the stage became increasingly set for the major warfare that now afflicts the area. During this period, rebel armies in Eritrea coalesced under the leadership of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF), which seeks a separate and independent Eritrea.

The government's military preoccupation in Eritrea permitted the growth of another distinct political/military movement in neighboring Tigray. This hard-line Marxist organization, the Tigrean People's Liberation Front (TPLF), has also expanded its military capacities and wages classic guerrilla warfare ambushing and interdicting government movements throughout the province.

The Current Military Situation

As a result of rebel successes and the ineffective performance of the Ethiopian Army in its last encounter, the military situation in northern Ethiopia is the most precarious in years. Since mid-February, climaxing with loss of Afabet to EPLF surprise attack on March 20, the Ethiopian Army has lost much ground, including garrison towns which it apparently intentionally abandoned. Government forces have withdrawn into a defensive perimeter centered on Massawa/Asmara/Keren in Eritrea and Mekele in Tigray. Positions there have been reinforced, and the government is actively rebuilding the manpower and material of the northern armies.

This buildup portends a major counteroffensive. Whenever that occurs and irrespective of whether it is successful, such fighting would likely come at high cost in lives, civilian as well as military. But even another major battle may not be definitive. This war has lasted 27 years, at times punctuated by bitter fighting and ebb and flow of territorial control. As in the past, it is possible, perhaps even probable, that no party will be able dramatically to alter the military balance in the near future. In that case, and in the absence of political solutions, the existing stalemate willlikely continue, albeit at a higher level of mobilization and readiness.

This impasse dramatically underlines the fact that only political solutions really offer the possibility for peace. In the absence of peace, war will continue, relief operations will be constrained, and famine will mount. Thousands if not hundreds of thousands or even millions of people may die. Sadly, no party to conflict in northern Ethiopia appears ready to negotiate or even to consider settlement on other than its harshest terms, i.e., total victory. How many more must die before belligerents recognize that peace rather than conquest is the path to reconciliation?

We note that in addition to pursuing internal military solutions, President Mengistu has taken certain diplomatic steps designed to reduce his evident vulnerabilities and to undercut support for his opponents or to lessen external pressures. In late March, Ethiopia accepted with alacrity 2-year-old Somali propositions which would reduce border tensions between these traditional foes. Implementation of such measures will release Ethiopian troops from the frontier for service on the northern front, but the SomaliaEthiopia accord will also deal directly with nagging issues such as exchange of POWs [prisoners of war] from the 1977 war and a halt to insurgent activities that have long retarded peace in the region. Similarly, there are indications that Ethiopia, after several years of deliberate destabilization of Sudan, might look for an accommodation with Sudan, in effect proposing a mutual halt to support for insurgents. Realization of this idea is problematical, however, because the issues are intractable and the parallels between the civil wars in these two countries are far from exact. The importance of the two developments, nonetheless, is that they represent Mengistu's near admission that Ethiopia has been responsible for mischief in the region.