Lost Opportunities in the Horn of Africa How Conflicts Connect and Peace Agreements Unravel
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Lost Opportunities in the Horn of Africa How Conflicts Connect and Peace Agreements Unravel A Horn of Africa Group Report by Sally Healy Lost Opportunities in the Horn of Africa How Conflicts Connect and Peace Agreements Unravel A Horn of Africa Group Report by Sally Healy 1 Chatham House has been the home of the Royal Institute of International Affairs for over eight decades. Our mission is to be a world-leading source of independent analysis, informed debate and influential ideas on how to build a prosperous and secure world for all. © Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2008 Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs) is an independent body which promotes the rigorous study of international questions and does not express opinion of its own. The opinions expressed in this publication are the responsibility of the author. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Please direct all enquiries to the publishers. Chatham House 10 St James’s Square London, SW1Y 4LE T: +44 (0) 20 7957 5700 F: +44 (0) 20 7957 5710 www.chathamhouse.org.uk Charity Registration No. 208223 ISBN 978 1 86203 203 3 Designed and typeset by Soapbox Communications Limited Printed by Latimer Trend and Co Ltd Cover images [l-r]: 1. The signing ceremony for the peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea in Algiers. Seated [l to r] are President Issayas Afeworki of Eritrea and Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia. UN Photo © Eskinder Debebe. 2. John Garang and Ali Osman Taha display the text of the wealth- sharing agreement in Naivasha, Kenya. © IRIN (200418). 3. A Somali soldier near a building destroyed in recent fighting between the government and insurgents, Mogadishu, 22 May 2007. © Ahmed Yusuf Mohamed/IRIN. 4. Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, President of the Transitional Federal Government of the Somali Republic, addresses the UN general debate of the sixtieth session of the General Assembly, 7 September 2005. UN Photo © Paulo Filgueiras. The boundaries and names shown and designations used on maps in this report do not imply endorsement or acceptance by the author, 2 Chatham House or its partners. www.chathamhouse.org.uk Contents About the Author 4 Acknowledgments 5 Executive Summary 6 1 Introduction: The Horn in its African Context 9 2 A Tale of Three Peace Processes 11 2.1. Ethiopia and Eritrea: The Algiers Agreement 11 2.2 Somalia: the Mbgathi Peace Process 20 2.3 Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) 29 3 The Regional Factors 38 4 Conclusions, Lessons and Recommendations 43 Notes 46 Chatham House, 10 St James’s Square, London SW1Y 4LE T: +44 (0)20 7957 5700 E: [email protected] 3 F: +44 (0)20 7957 5710 www.chathamhouse.org.uk www.chathamhouse.org.uk Charity Registration Number: 208223 www.chathamhouse.org.uk About the author Sally Healy OBE is an Associate Fellow of the Africa Programme at Chatham House. She was formerly a specialist in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office with over twenty years’ experience providing research and analysis of African politics and development, with a partic- ular focus on the countries of the Horn and East Africa. She is Convenor of the Horn of Africa Group, a collabora- tive study of conflict in the Horn of Africa undertaken at ChathamHouseoverthepasttwoyears,andistheauthor, with Martin Plaut, of the Chatham House Briefing Paper Ethiopia and Eritrea: Allergic to Persuasion (2007). 4 www.chathamhouse.org.uk As convenor of the Horn of Africa Group I took the lead in arranging the series. We benefited greatly from the participation in our discussions of many London-based individualsfromSomalia,Eritrea,EthiopiaandSudan who helped to deepen our understanding of the politics of Acknowledgments the Horn. They all deserve credit. I would particularly like to acknowledge the invaluable role played by my collabo- rators: Richard Dowden of the Royal African Society, John Ryle of the Rift Valley Institute, Dr Cedric Barnes and Dr Richard Reid of SOAS and the Centre for Africa Studies. Their interest and enthusiasm for the project, their This study draws on information and analysis developed expertise and insights have made this a hugely beneficial in a diverse range of meetings and events in 2007 convened collaboration. Martin Plaut of the BBC World Service has bytheHornofAfricaGroup.Thiswasacollaboration also made an outstanding contribution to our work. I between four institutions: Chatham House, the Royal would like to thank Tom Cargill and Roger Middleton African Society, the Rift Valley Institute and the Centre for from the Africa Programme of Chatham House who African Studies at London University. We sought to pool provided the institutional and administrative support that the regional expertise of the four organizations, to engage enabled it all to run smoothly. with policy-makers and people from the region, to Theprojectbenefitedfromthefinancialsupportofthe challenge received wisdom and to take a long-term view. Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Royal Norwegian The Group’s activities were loosely framed around an Government and the Government of Canada, which is investigation of peace processes in the Horn of Africa and gratefully acknowledged. We also acknowledge the value why they had produced such disappointing outcomes. of their officials’ participation in our meetings. The This report builds on several earlier publications produced funding enabled me to pay a research visit to Addis Ababa, through our collaboration. Among them are briefing Djibouti and Nairobi, where a large number of govern- papers on the Algiers Agreement1 and on the rise of the ment representatives and officials, diplomats, analysts and Islamic Courts in Mogadishu,2 and a conference report on think-tankstaffgenerouslytooktheirtimetoexplaintheir Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement.3 Ethiopia’s positions and share their views. intervention in Somalia was discussed in meetings with a The judgments and conclusions in this report are my wide range of Somali interlocutors and helped to inform own.Ihopethattheydojusticetothenumerouscontribu- articles in The World Today.4 The interplay of local and tions of others. I hope too that the report offers some global interests was examined in a conference on Eritrea’s insights that may one day contribute to a more peaceful Foreign Policy.5 The series also included a conference on future in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea’s Economic Prospects6 andanotherontheconflict in the Ogaden region.7 Sally Healy 5 www.chathamhouse.org.uk quite unable to establish its authority inside Somalia. When the Islamic Courts took control of Mogadishu in 2006, Ethiopia decided to install the TFG by force. Since then Mogadishu has been in the grip of a powerful insur- gency, part anti-Ethiopian, part Islamist, directed against Executive summary the TFG and its Ethiopian sponsors. An undersized African Union peacekeeping force is helplessly caught in the middle. Reconciliation efforts pushed by the interna- tional community have made little headway. The conflict in South Central Somalia continues to deepen and spread ataterriblehumancost,creatingconditionsthataremuch This report is a study of three peace processes in the Horn worse than those that existed before the peace process of Africa, a region of Africa distinguished by the preva- began. lence and persistence of armed conflict. It deals with the Algiers Agreement of December 2000 between Ethiopia Sudan’s Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) has and Eritrea, the Somalia National Peace and made progress. The South of Sudan has established its own Reconciliation Process concluded in October 2004 and the government and the two sides rely heavily on the CPA text Sudan Comprehensive Peace Agreement of January 2005. to manage their relations. However, some critically It examines in turn the background and historical importantquestionsremaintoberesolvedabouttheterri- context of the conflicts that these peace agreements were torial definition of the South and the make-up of the intended to resolve. It charts the developments since the Southern population. The results of the recently completed agreements were signed, seeking to assess how far they census will be vital. Slippage in the implementation have achieved successful outcomes for peace and stability. timetable caused a political crisis and near breakdown in The results are very mixed. late 2007. Anxiety and lack of trust hinder progress; there is much still to do, including elections, before a refer- The Algiers Agreement continues to provide a framework endum on independence for the South in 2011. The failure for relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea. But it has not to reach political settlements on key issues of demarcation created a permanent settlement between the two sides and and administration in the oil-rich region of Abyei bodes now seems unlikely to do so. The two instruments created badly. Lack of political will, lack of capacity, lack of trust by Algiers to help Ethiopia and Eritrea reach a permanent and the long shadow of conflict in Darfur continue to pose peace were the Eritrea–Ethiopia Boundary Commission major challenges. and the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE). These both appear to have run their course. The prevalence of identity politics and processes of state The two countries have not returned to war. But their formation