President Isaias: a love affair with explosives

Feb 11, 2011

(MoFA,Feb 11, 2011)- The saying that old habits die hard rings nowhere more true than in the behaviour of what is still Africa’s youngest nation - Eritrea. From its first day of independence, Eritrea has displayed a precocious talent for trouble-making, wilfully engaging in unnecessary spats with its neighbours and with the international community at large. The oversized ambition of its leaders has had no equal throughout the region and even more widely. Their interpretations of policy have had no equals: contraband activity provides the basis of the economy; cross-border intimidation is the central element of diplomatic activity; and security activity and suppression of dissent make up the entire political spectrum.

Despite its youth, Eritrea has however managed to earn a number of firsts, though not in areas that most people would welcome and certainly for all the wrong reasons. Eritrea today is the only country in the world with the declared policy, and the actual practice, of sending all its high school students to one single military camp to matriculate under military discipline. Eritrea is, in fact, the most militarized nation on earth with close to 20 per cent of its productive population near-permanently consigned to military service.

Eritrea’s leaders’ penchant for rabble rousing has earned them the dubious honour of being the only government in Africa to have made enemies out of all its neighbours within less than a decade of independence. None of Eritrea’s neighbours has been spared from its unwholesome adventurism. Nor have Eritrea’s leaders confined their activity to immediate neighbours. Somalia is a case in point. Despite the international community’s repeated calls for normal behaviour from Eritrea, and even subsequent United Nations Security Council Sanctions, Eritrea still remains adamant in its open support of extremist elements and opposition to the legitimate and recognized government in Somalia.

Ethiopia, of course, remains the top choice of target for the destabilizing activities of Eritrean leaders. Having failed in its war of open aggression, the regime in Asmara has resigned itself to sponsoring destabilization through the proxy activities of a network of Ethiopian rejectionist opposition elements. Asmara has never lost any opportunity to try to sneak in operatives carrying explosives. Some of these have been detonated in public places with loss of life and property, but many more, fortunately, have failed. Despite this, the regime in Asmara has continued to send all sorts of people across the border to try to wreak havoc in Ethiopia on even the smallest scale. Even impeding Ethiopia’s progress by just a fraction appears to be a matter of delight for Asmara. Any semblance of instability in Ethiopia, however fleeting, is apparently sufficient reason for the regime to try and carry out yet another effort at destabilization, to go to any lengths to try to spite Ethiopia.

The latest attempt took the form of a well-orchestrated effort to sneak in dozens of terrorists with sufficient explosives to disrupt the AU Summit in Addis Ababa at the end of last month. Thanks to the vigilance of the security forces and the cooperation of citizens, everyone involved was seized before they could set off even a single explosive. The government of Ethiopia is now preparing to lay detailed evidence before the AU and the UN. It should remove any doubts about the regime in Asmara, which as Prime Minister Meles recently remarked is a regime which apparently feels nauseous without the sound of explosions. For a people and government that have been so often at the receiving end of President Isaias’ attempted bloody adventures, these latest efforts are no particular cause for alarm. They are, however, yet another reminder of the need for continued vigilance. The only surprising, indeed ironic, thing about this latest attempt is that it was carried out just when some naïve people have been expressing a sense of optimism about Eritrea’s actions following its decision to reinstate its mission to the AU. It is now clear that decision was made without any change in the regime’s negative attitude towards international diplomatic norms. The arrival of the mission to the AU is in striking contrast with the cold-blooded terrorist attempts that were foiled last month. It’s clear we haven’t seen the last of any such terrorist activities.

Nor are they likely to be confined to Ethiopia. There have already been indications that the Eritrean regime is making efforts to infiltrate similar groups into Djibouti to try to disrupt the elections due to be held there shortly. As we have already underlined, nothing has changed with regard to Eritrea’s position on Somalia. In fact, Eritrea’s leaders have made it their business to tell the international community it is wrong to work towards peace in Somalia, or even call for it, because as they put it in a matter-of-fact manner: “we [Eritreans] are entitled to our opinion” or “to thinking outside the box”!

Eritrea is a case study of a political experiment in leadership gone wrong. Despite the repeated evidence of this, the leadership in Asmara has been assisted, if inadvertently, by the continued reluctance of the international community to take a meaningful and serious position over Eritrea’s behaviour. It’s hardly a surprise that there appears to be no end in sight to the regime’s destabilizing role in the region. Ethiopia would certainly like to see the international community take a long hard look at what is missing in the sanctions imposed on the regime and aimed at the leadership in Asmara. It would like to see the international community do whatever is necessary to bring the regime in Asmara back to normal diplomatic activity before it is too late.

Prime Minister Meles has reiterated time and again that the international community is not Ethiopia’s last line of defence against Eritrea’s destabilizing activities. Ethiopia will, as always, continue to take measured responses to these attacks. At the same time, there wouldn’t be any harm in Eritrea’s leaders realizing that there is always a limit to patience.