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by The 2020s have already shown themselves to be a decade of wars and crises in the international sphere- between Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Hamas, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and even Venezuela and Guyana. However, there is another very major international crisis that could blow up into an all-out catastrophe soon- the Horn of Africa, specifically between Ethiopia and Eritrea. As the drumbeats for war grow louder in Ethiopia while the rest of the world remains distracted, it would be very helpful for policymakers to understand the history between the two countries to have a better understanding of the situation that might as well become one of the deadliest wars in the twentieth century if it was to break out.
How did Eritrea split from Ethiopia?
Ethiopia is a country that has been one of Africa’s most historic civilizations and is well-known for being the very first kingdom in the world to adopt the Christian religion¹. It is one of the world’s oldest countries and has also been one of Africa’s most powerful countries for centuries. During the time of European colonialism of Africa, Ethiopia was powerful enough to fight off the British and Italians and was successful in being one of only two African countries to have never been colonized, and the only one to actively fight off the Europeans who tried to colonize it. 1889 was a very crucial year in the history of Ethiopia because that was the year when two major things happened.
First, Emperor Yohannes was killed in battle², and was succeeded as Emperor by Menelik II, who is regarded to be one of Ethiopia’s greatest Emperors, and the one who established the capital at Addis Ababa. The second major event, which is much more important to the current tensions of the region, is that Ethiopia and Italy signed a “treaty of friendship,” which Italy interpreted to mean that it controlled Ethiopia’s foreign policy, thus considering Ethiopia to be its protectorate. Ethiopia rejected this notion, and so, in 1895, Italy invaded Ethiopia and sought to acquire it as a colonial territory like the British had done with Egypt and the French had done with Morocco. Italy had already held the territory on the coast of the Red Sea from the mid-1880s, and in the 1889 treaty, Italy had gotten de-facto control over what it called “Italian Eritrea,” which it believed was just going to be an extension of a future colony that encompassed all of Ethiopia. However, the invasion did not go well at all, and after Ethiopia defeated the Italians at the Battle of Adwa³, Italy recognized Ethiopia’s independence. However, it did manage to take permanent control of Eritrea as a colony, representing the permanent split that occurred between Ethiopia and Eritrea.
For the first thirty years of the twentieth century, Ethiopia mostly remained focused on internal developments, while remaining hostile to the colonial powers that surrounded it- Britain and Italy- who it perceived as seeking to conquer the empire at any opportunity. In particular, the rulers of Ethiopia looked at Eritrea with unease, seeing it as a possible future springboard for a future invasion of the nation by Italy. In 1930, Emperor Haile Selassie I came to power, and his reign was going to be extremely important for the country.
Eritrea, meanwhile, remained an Italian colony, and Italy invested into this colony more than all of its other African colonies⁴, as it was strategically at a very important location- on the mouth of the Red Sea- and thus could help Italy with trading connections with Asia. The capital of Asmara was developed, with many Italians coming there to work, so much so that one-fifth of the population of the city by 1930 were Italians. Italy mostly used Eritrea as a production center of fruits, especially oranges, though many factories were also set up to support Italian consumers. While Italy’s treatment of its colony was brutal, many Eritreans born during colonial times tended to express a fondness for the time, due to the stability Italian rule brought, in contrast to what would happen later on.
In 1922, Benito Mussolini became the Prime Minister of Italy, and he made no secret of his ambition to restore Italy to the greatness it had experienced in the days of the Roman Empire⁵. Fortunately for him, there was an empire that lay just on the border of an Italian colony, that no other European empire had colonised yet- Ethiopia. And thus, in 1935, Italy launched yet another invasion of Ethiopia, this time with a much larger force of 500,000 troops. Ethiopia fell under this full-scale invasion, and after Haile Selassie fled, Mussolini incorporated Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia to create “Italian East Africa,” and made it the industrial base of his “new Roman empire.”
During the Second World War, Ethiopia was a very big part of Italy’s war effort, as it used it to invade and occupy British Somaliland, and to disrupt the Royal Navy’s travels between the Mediterranean Sea and the Pacific. However, in 1941, British troops liberated Ethiopia and placed Haile Selassie back on the throne of Ethiopia, but the question of Eritrea became a big one, as Ethiopia sought to reassert control over its old possession. After the war, the British governed Eritrea while the Allies deliberated over what was to be done with Italian colonies. The British initially proposed splitting the colony up between British Sudan and Ethiopia, but that plan was not carried out. Meanwhile, Emperor Selassie laid claim to Eritrea, and he succeeded in getting the US and UK to support handing eastern Eritrea over to Ethiopia as a reward for the help in the Second World War. However, Eritrean politicians wanted a referendum to be held in the territory for full independence.
In 1952, the United Nations federated Eritrea with Ethiopia⁶, and the federation was to have a loose structure with the Emperor at its head, with Eritrea being a semi-independent nation with its own government, flag, police force, and other domestic affairs, while foreign affairs and national defence were to be managed from Addis Ababa. Neither Ethiopia or Eritrea really liked the deal- Ethiopia continued to have designs on taking their old territory back, while Eritrea felt that only complete independence could protect their sovereignty. Through the 1950s, tensions continued to rise between the two, especially after the founding of the Eritrean Liberation Movement⁷ (ELM) in 1958.
As Ethiopia continued to pursue centralization of power in the federation, support for total independence continued to rise, and the ELM grew in numbers, especially in the city of Assaba, which was the main port city that Ethiopia used to transport a huge amount of their foreign trade. There was a sentiment that Eritreans were being disregarded and used by Ethiopia, which really did not care much about investing in the region.
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| President Isaias Afwerki and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sign the Joint Declaration of Peace and Friendship between Eritrea and Ethiopia on 9 July 2018. Photo: Yemane Gebremeskel |
Eritrean War of Independence and its Aftermath
On 1st September 1961, the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) declared independence from Ethiopia⁸, beginning a decades-long war that would result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians. The next year, using the war as an opportunity to centralize control, Ethiopia annexed Eritrea⁹ and made it a province, abolishing the federation and resulting in the Eritrean people almost entirely flocking to the banner of the ELF. The Eritrean war of independence would go on for more than thirty years, and was an absolutely brutal struggle, as Ethiopia refused to give up the very important territory especially the ports of Assab and Massawa.
While the war in Eritrea went on, Ethiopia modernized under Selassie’s rule, but his tyrannical rule slowly resulted in him losing the support of the Ethiopian people, who sought reform of the authoritarian system of rule. Then, in 1973, a devastating famine began in the Wollo province¹º, which would, in two years, kill more than 200,000 people. Selassie completely botched the government's response to the famine, and this significantly destabilized his regime. The 1973 oil crisis also led to significant inflation, and this just added to Selassie’s troubles. With a civil war going on, inflation getting worse and a famine having begun, the Ethiopian people had decided that they had had enough of their authoritarian rulers.
In January 1974, the Ethiopian Revolution began¹¹, as the people of the country rose up against their Emperor, aided by a rebellion within the armed forces. While the Emperor fought back with brutal suppression of the revolution, the military leadership saw a power struggle in which radical left-wing forces emerged victorious. In September 1974, a group of Marxist-Leninist military forces known as the ‘Derg¹²’ staged a coup d’etat, seizing control of the Ethiopian government and driving the Emperor away to Djibouti. They formally abolished the position of emperor and declared Ethiopia to be a Marxist-Leninist republic. The Derg ruled Ethiopia until 1987, and during their rule, they fought hard against the ELF, which managed to consistently defeat the Ethiopian forces in Eritrea and establish total military control of the region. In 1991, by which time the Derg had largely lost control of the Ethiopian government, the ELF totally pushed out Ethiopian forces, and the new Ethiopian government, led by the ‘Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front,’ decided that continuing the war under heavy international pressure was going to be useless.
The EPRDF was a coalition of several political parties that were united in their struggle against the Derg, but most prominently the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which generally supported the struggle of the Eritreans due to the historic ties between the Tigray people and Eritreans, and so, when the Derg were overthrown in 1991, the new government agreed to the United Nations’ plan to hold a referendum in Eritrea to finally resolve the question of Eritrean independence. In 1993, the UN oversaw a referendum in the region, and in what was considered a free and fair vote¹³, 99.8% of the population in Eritrea voted for independence. On 24th May 1993, Eritrea became an independent country, though the war did not formally end until the two countries signed a peace treaty in 2000 when bilateral relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea were established and a commission was set up to resolve many conflicts they had on the border. After this, relations between the two have been very hostile, and constant skirmishes have defined the border between the two, but 2023 saw the possible flaring up of this conflict that could result in war erupting between the two countries yet again, which might cause significant shocks to the global economy and yet another humanitarian crisis involving hundreds of thousands of people.
For more information regarding the recent tensions and possible conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea, read our comprehensive article here.
Bibliography
Ross, Emma George, “African Christianity in Ethiopia.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2002
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Yohannes IV: Emperor of Ethiopia.” Britannica.com
Joll, James, “Mussolini’s Roman Empire.” The New York Times, 1976.
Beyer, Greg, “The Eritrean War of Independence: How Eritrea Won its Freedom.” The Collector, 2023
Maasho, Aaron, “Ethiopian and Eritrean relations.” Reuters, 2018
Miller, D.S.; Holt, J.F.J.; “The Ethiopian Famine.” Cambridge University Press and Assessment, 1975
Hiwet, Addis, “Analysing the Ethiopian revolution.” Taylor and Francis Online
Connell, Dan, “Countries At the Crossroads 2011: Eritrea.” Freedom House
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