This dyad belongs to the conflict Ethiopia: Eritrea
Summary of conflict Ethiopia: Eritrea
The conflict between Eritrean separatists and two successive Ethiopian regimes was fought out during three decades. Initially launched by ELF in 1961, the armed conflict was exceptionally bloody and involved much suffering for the civilian Eritrean population. In 1973 EPLF broke away from ELF and during the rest of the 1970s a factional conflict was fought alongside the one against the government. Cooperating with other rebels in the country, EPLF was able to defeat the military regime in May 1991 and Eritrea subsequently gained independence in 1993.
Background to the conflict
Eritrea was established as an Italian colony in 1890. After World War II, the Italian colonisers were forced to hand over power to the British Military Administration. Under both Italian and British colonial rule, the rudiments of an urban social and economic order were established. Furthermore, an export-based export industry was created and political parties as well as trade unions were permitted. This experience differed sharply from neighbouring Ethiopia, where an imperial ruler managed a feudal economic system. However, the neighbouring empire during the 1940s began to show clear signs of aspiring to extend its borders to incorporate Eritrea. In 1950, the UN decided that Eritrea should indeed be federated with Ethiopia and two years later the agreement was put into practice, against the will of a majority of the Eritrean people. After a decade of uneasy federation, Emperor Haile Sellassie unilaterally annexed Eritrea and incorporated it as Ethiopias 14th province.
Even if Eritrean nationalism had struck root under Italian rule, it was the end of the federation that marked the beginning of the armed Eritrean liberation struggle, a struggle that would continue for 30 years.
A factionalised rebel movement
By the end of the conflict, there were at least a dozen Eritrean factions, claiming to fight for Eritrean independence. However, during the 30 years of conflict there were two groups that clearly dominated the struggle: ELF (Eritrean Liberation Front) and EPLF (Eritrea Peoples Liberation Front). The former was the group that launched the armed struggle in 1961 and it remained the sole rebel actor through the 1960s.
Ideological and ethnic differences split ELF in 1970, and a faction mainly consisting of educated guerrilla fighters from the Christian highland and Muslim eastern lowland broke away, creating EPLF. Unlike ELF, the new group was highly centralized and disciplined. Apart from calling for independence from Ethiopia, the Marxist oriented EPLF also strove for a social revolution. During the 1970s and the early years of the 1980s, the EPLF and various ELF factions fought each other for dominance, with EPLF slowly gaining the upper hand in the fighting. In 1982 EPLF finally managed to push ELF out of Eritrea and into Sudan, thus establishing itself as the dominating force in the territory.
Support and cooperation
In December 1974, when the conflict had been ongoing for a decade, the Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie was ousted from power. His last 15 years in power had been marred by popular protests over unequal distribution of land and the lack of development and in 1974 a wave of strikes and mutinies in the armed forces led to the demise of the imperial regime. A new military government, the Provisional Military Council (PMAC) or Dergue, seized power, under the leadership of Col. Mengisto Haile Mariam. Ethiopia was declared a socialist state, and subsequently developed close relations with both the Soviet Union and Cuba. A military assistance agreement was worked out with the USSR, with the latter contributing billions of dollars worth of arms over the years. Furthermore, numerous Soviet military advisors were deployed in Addis Ababa to assist the Ethiopian government. However, by the late 1980s, events in Eastern Europe precipitated a complete collapse of the regimes overseas alliances, and an increasingly desperate Mengistu subsequently turned to Israel. In 1989 a secret agreement was closed between Israel and Ethiopia, providing for Israeli military assistance in exchange for Mengistus promise to let Ethiopian Jews, Falashas, return to Israel.
The Eritrean rebels, for their part, received external support from numerous Arab states, channelled through Sudan. Even though EPLF (Eritrea Peoples Liberation Front) never admitted to receiving outside help, it is fairly clear that Syria, Iraq and Libya provided the rebels with weapons and artillery.
Apart from external actors contributing to the conflict, the war between ELF (Eritrean Liberation Front) and ERPL and the Ethiopian government needs to be seen in the wider, chaotic, Ethiopian context. From the 1970s onwards, there were numerous conflicts active simultaneously in Ethiopia, with other regions also fighting for independence and an armed conflict over governmental power raging. Since the armed opposition groups had a common enemy, the Mengistu regime, they at times cooperated militarily. The rebel organisation that EPLF formed the closest ties with was the TPLF (Tigray Peoples Liberation Front), which was fighting to seize power in Addis Ababa. During the late 1970s and on and of during the 1980s, the two movements coordinated many of their militarily actions, and TPLF was of additional help to the Eritreans as they formed a buffer between the Ethiopian army and Eritrea.
The armed conflict
During the 1970s, EPLF (Eritrea Peoples Liberation Front) and ELF (Eritrean Liberation Front) had managed to capture all but five major towns in Eritrea and controlled most of the countryside, placing the regime in a precarious situation. However, in 1978 there was a massive influx of Soviet weapons and the Ethiopian armed forces launched a large offensive into rebel-held territory, succeeding in retaking most of the Eritrean towns. EPLF was pushed into the far north around the remote town of Nakfa, but there the luck changed. The Ethiopian armed forces lost their momentum and over the following years the conflict was characterised by the governments annual offensives against the independence movement.
Between 1978 and 1986 the regime launched eight offensives, but EPLF, using a strategy of strategic retreats and lightning counter-attacks, managed to withstand the Ethiopian onslaught, and had by 1990 re-captured 90% of Eritrea. In 1991, the Mengistu era was coming to an end. The vital Soviet support was drying up and morale in the army was low. EPLF had managed to defeat the Ethiopian forces in Eritrea and a number of rebel groups, among them EPLF, made great gains in heartland Ethiopia, advancing on the capital.
Parallel to the purely military struggle, EPLF policy stressed the social aspects of liberation and national revolution. A network of underground hospitals, factories, schools and libraries were established, as great emphasis was placed on health, economic self-sufficiency and political education. In areas under its control, EPLF set up an underground administration, which among other things pursued land reforms.
The fall of the Dergue: Eritrea gains independence
Several attempts at reaching a peaceful solution to the conflict were made, particularly in the mid-1970s and in the latter part of the 1980s, but to no avail. From 1989 and onwards a number of procedural talks took place, but no conclusive negotiations could be held, since the Dergue, or the military government, refused to discuss the subject of independence whereas EPLF (Eritrea Peoples Liberation Front) would not agree to talk about anything else.
From this point on, the Eritrean conflict became even more closely entangled with the other main conflict taking place simultaneously - that over governmental power. By the early 1990s, the largest and most successful armed opposition movement in this latter conflict was the umbrella organisation EPRDF (Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front), in which EPLFs allies TPLF (Tigray Peoples Liberation Front) was the dominant party. As indicated earlier, EPLF joined forces with the armed opposition to defeat the regime (see the section “Support and cooperation”). This alliance came with an agreement between EPLF and EPRDF, where the Eritreans were guaranteed the right to a referendum on the future status of the territory, were EPRDF to come to power.
On 21 May 1991 Ethiopian President Mengistu, facing a military defeat, fled the country and six days later US-led negotiations were opened in London. By then, the EPRDF had encircled the capital and the US recommended EPRDF to enter it and restore order. The government subsequently boycotted the negotiations, but had no chance of resisting militarily. The opposition groups agreed to let EPRDF set up an interim government pending democratic elections. EPLF, for its part, set up a provisional government in Eritrea, and the country received de facto independence. Following a referendum on the future of the province, Eritrea proclaimed it’s de jure independence on 24 May 1993, marking the formal resolution of the incompatibility.
