14 May 1999 Vol 40 No 10 AFRICA CONFIDENTIAL NIGERIA 3 HORN OF AFRICA Golden parachutes It's now clear that President Regional collisions Obasanjo's incoming civilian The Eritrea-Ethiopia war is helping the Islamist regime in Khartoum government will face a major and further destabilising Djibouti and Somalia financial crisis when it takes office on 29 May. The massive drawdown The main beneficiary of the Eritrean-Ethiopian war (AC Vol 40 No 4) is Sudan’s National Islamic in foreign reserves continues, state Front government. A year ago, both Addis Ababa and Asmara were committed to backing the borrowing is rising sharply and the northern and southern Sudanese opposition, grouped in the National Democratic Alliance, which programme with the IMF has been all but derailed. was making increasingly effective attacks on NIF forces. Ethiopia has since reduced its support for the NDA after meetings with the NIF; more surprisingly, Asmara is also cosying up to Khartoum, signing a ‘reconciliation’ agreement in Qatar on 2 May. The terms include an Eritrean promise to SOUTH AFRICA 4 give the Sudan Embassy, handed to the NDA after Asmara broke diplomatic relations in December 1994, back to the government. The NIF regime, which persists in its regional destabilisation strategy Compulsory through the sponsorship of armed Islamist fighters, is now in the improbable position of being coalition courted by two of its once most determined enemies - though who began the courting ritual is in each However the people of KwaZulu- case a moot point. Relations have become an exercise in mutual manipulation. Natal vote, their party leaders have Since 1994, Eritrea has backed the NDA with training, arms and (denials notwithstanding) with decided that the province will be troops; Eritrean forces have crossed the border several times. Hassan Abdullah el Turabi’s NIF ruled by an ANC-Inkatha coalition appeared to have earned the enduring hostility of Eritrean President Issayas Afeworki because of for the next five years. The deal its support for Eritrean Islamic Jihad and the Eritrean Liberation Front of Abdullah Idris. between Thabo Mbeki and Mangosuthu Buthelezi means the Abdullah’s ELF (ELF-AI) has recruited both inside Eritrea and among Eritrean refugees in Sudan, voters' choice is really about which prompting Issayas to announce publicly that Hassan el Turabi and the NIF ‘had got to go’. Issayas party dominates the coalition. told Africa Confidential two years ago that he was confident the NDA would be able to topple El Turabi and the titular President, Lieutenant General Omer Hassan Ahmed el Beshir, even if that meant a protracted struggle. ANGOLA 6 Oil-fired warfare Changing calculations Now the calculation has changed and Issayas is concerned about possible Sudanese sponsored As the government's economic and military position worsens, its rearguard action through organisations such as the ELF-AI while Eritrean forces are concentrating apparatchiks are finding ever more on the border war with Ethiopia. Two years ago the ELF-AI formed a united front with other anti- innovative ways of financing the Issayas elements called the ELF-National Congress war effort. The latest strategy uses Ethiopia has been trying to persuade other small Eritrean opposition movements to join this anti- the marketing of equity stakes in Issayas alliance. In Khartoum in March, Eritrean opposition groups finally created the Alliance of new oil fields to guarantee funds to companies linked to defence and Eritrean National Forces, headed by Abdullah Idris (who was military commander of the original security services. ELF). The new Alliance brings together ELF factions (ELF-National Congress, including ELF-AI, with ELF-Revolutionary Council) and three small Marxist organisations (the Popular Democratic Front for the Liberation of Eritrea, Eritrean Revolutionary Democratic Front and Eritrean Kunama TANZANIA 7 Democratic Movement). Also included are another Kunama group called the Eritrean Democratic Resistance Movement, the Khartoum-based Eritrean Initiative Group, and the two wings of Islamic Island initiative Eritrean Jihad, now called the Eritrean People’s Congress and the Eritrean Islamic Salvation After four years of stalemate and Movement. three years of hard work by the The Alliance includes opponents of Eritrea’s ruling People’s Front for Democracy and Justice Commonwealth, a new agreement promises an end to the Zanzibar (PFDJ, formerly Eritrean People’s Liberation Front) from most ethnic groups. Yet the Afar Red Sea crisis. President Mkapa may have Front, recently created by Ethiopia and based there, apparently refused to join. The Alliance largely to remind Zanzibari leader Salmin represents Muslim opposition to the PFDJ, though the ELF-RC has significant Christian support. At Amour that when it comes to least three of its elements have some military experience and it can probably put some 3,000 or so political and economic solutions, fighters into the field; it will get significant support from Sudan and may strengthen Ethiopia’s proxy outsiders' opinions matter. operations in Eritrea, all the more effectively since it will presumably be able to use both Sudanese POINTERS 8 and Ethiopian territory. Zimbabwe/Congo- Facing this spectre, Issayas has been sounding out the possibilities of the Sudanese-Eritrean rapprochement mediated by Libya's Colonel Moammar el Gadaffi. The agreement includes a Kinshasa, Sudan commitment to stop supporting each other’s opposition groups. Then the NDA launched an attack and West Africa in the Eastern Region region on 5 May (see Pointer), partly aimed at destabilising the Asmara- Khartoum agreement. It may have succeeded in showing at least that whatever Gadaffi mediated, 14 May 1999 Africa Confidential Vol 40 No 10 0 Kilometres 600 Red over into domestic politics. Eritrea wants to threaten Ethiopia’s le A t Ni b a Sea r 0Miles 300 a main road and rail link abroad, via Djibouti port, so it backs the Kassala Massawa SAN’A opposition Front pour la Restauration de l’Unité et la Démocratie ASMARA Wad ERITREA YEMEN (FRUD); on 13 April, Djibouti’s Foreign Minister, Muhammed Medani Musa Chechem, warned that President Issayas’ ‘intransigence’ B l TIGRAY n u e e Assab e d il N Gondar Aden A and ‘irrational and insane’ behaviour could drag Djibouti into a i N l f e Mt Moussa Ali o e e t DJIBOUTI f i Lake Tadjoura u l h G ‘swamp of border conflict’. Tana W sh DJIBOUTI Dese a w A L. Hafun After FRUD attacked an Ethiopian road convoy near the border Abbe Berbera last October, Ethiopia started helping the Djibouti government; ADDIS d SOMALILAND ABABA n Harar Ethiopian troops and helicopters have been in action at least twice SUDAN a l t this year against suspected FRUD forces. Most FRUD units ETHIOPIA REGION n Ogaden u operate in northern Djibouti, close to the Eritrean-controlled Mount P o FIVE Om Moussa Ali, where the borders of the three countries meet. However, Yirga ’Alem Sha be lle on 14 and 15 April, two landmines exploded in Tadjourah district, SIDAMA SOMALIA one of them killing or wounding twelve policemen, and Boran Belet Dolo Weyne BAKOOL demonstrating FRUD’s disruptive power. Lake Luuq Turkana Bulo Hawo Eritrea has also supplied arms to opposition movements in GEDO UGANDA BAY eastern and southern Ethiopia, including the Oromo Liberation J MOGADISHU u ba Marka Front (OLF) and Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF). The KENYA KAMPALA Indian Equator intermediary is Hussein Mohamed Farah ‘Aydeed’ in Mogadishu, Kismayo who has close links with both groups as well as with the Somalian Lake Ocean Victoria NAIROBI Raas Kamboni Islamist front, Al Itahad al Islami. OLF fighters have fought in Aydeed’s militia against the Rahenweyne Resistance Army (RRA) it was not an effective non-aggression pact: the NDA continues to in Bay and Bakool regions, and some were recently seen in be based in Eritrea, with the clear aim of overthrowing the NIF Mogadishu. Aydeed has sent the OLF weapons and in April 1998, regime while the Eritrean opposition alliance stays on in Khartoum, allowed it to hold a congress in Mogadishu, where it elected new having been assured by Sudan that ‘its status was unchanged’. leaders drawn largely from its military and Muslim elements. Djibouti is also having a mixed war (AC Vol 40 No 7). Its port When Hussein Aydeed visited Addis Ababa last August, Ethiopia is benefiting from the Ethiopian business rerouted from Eritrea offered him nothing, so Eritrea won him over when he visited over the past year but the Asmara-Addis Ababa conflict is spilling Asmara in February. He was accompanied by Abdurahman Eritrea and its cousins The odds are stacked against Eritrea. Ethiopia has a bigger and better increased the threat from his harder-line compatriots. There are no equipped army and airforce, and a bigger population and economy to open signs of discontent in Asmara and Issayas’ simple lifestyle still sustain a long war. But President Issayas Afeworki tells visitors not endears him to his people. Yet Eritrea’s diaspora, mainly in the United to forget history: little Eritrea took on and beat Colonel Mengistu States and Britain, which is expected to give some US$400 million to Haile Mariam’s regime in Ethiopia, which had boasted the biggest the war effort, has started asking some awkward questions. Instinctively, army in Africa plus massive backing from the Soviet Union. This exiles back their country against what they see as Ethiopian aggression time, Issayas says, Ethiopia is weaker and more divided because most but may start to show their frustration if Issayas doesn’t produce some Ethiopians won’t support what they see as a war prosecuted in the results on the diplomatic front. Youngsters in Eritrea, whom Issayas interests of Premier Meles Zenawi’s Tigrayan-dominated government.