https://themilitant.com/2018/08/24/working-people-welcome-eritrea-ethiopia-peace-deal/
Working people welcome Eritrea-Ethiopia peace deal
By Brian Williams
Vol. 82/No. 33
September 3, 2018
Hundreds of thousands lined procession route from airport to center of
Eritrea’s capital Asmara when Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed
arrived July 8 to sign peace treaty after 20 years of war. Eritrean
youth have been subjected to mandatory conscription for “national
service.” Hundreds of thousands lined procession route from airport to
center of Eritrea’s capital Asmara when Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy
Ahmed arrived July 8 to sign peace treaty after 20 years of war.
Eritrean youth have been subjected to mandatory conscription for
“national service.”
After two decades of war and conflict, the rulers of Ethiopia and
Eritrea signed an agreement to normalize relations July 9. Washington
backed the initiative in an effort to bring capitalist stability and
promote the U.S. rulers’ interests in the Horn of Africa, one of the
world’s busiest shipping lanes.
This development is good for working people, creating political space to
discuss, debate and organize to advance their class interests.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed traveled to Eritrea the previous day
for a summit with President Isaias Afwerki, the first such meeting
between leaders of the two countries in 20 years.
In addition to reopening embassies, flights between the two countries
are being restored and direct telephone calls permitted. The agreement
opens the door for landlocked Ethiopian producers to start using
Eritrea’s Red Sea ports.
Donald Yamamoto, then U.S. acting assistant secretary of state for
African affairs, had met with government leaders in both Eritrea and
Ethiopia at the end of April to push for an accord. It was the first
visit by a top U.S. official in many years.
Also promoting the accord were the governments of Saudi Arabia and
United Arab Emirates, each of which has close ties with Eritrea and
investments in the area, as well as Qatar, which has relations with
Ethiopia. As a convoy of vehicles brought Ahmed from the airport to
downtown Asmara, Eritrea’s capital, he was met by cheering crowds — an
expression of support for ending the yearslong conflict and the
devastation it inflicted on working people.
For toilers in Eritrea these openings could mean the end of hated
mandatory conscription, which has disrupted the lives of millions, and a
halt to suppression of the press and democratic provisions in the
constitution that were suspended, including all elections since 1998.
On July 14 Eritrean President Afwerki flew to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s
capital, where crowds turned out to hail the agreement. Demonstrators
“lined Addis Ababa’s streets, waving both countries’ flags and chanting
antiwar slogans,” reported the Washington Post.
The Ethiopian rulers are requesting the U.N. lift sanctions it helped
put in place against Eritrea in 2009 for its alleged support for the
opposition Somali Islamist movement. Responding to these developments,
Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed visited Eritrea July 30 and
signed an agreement to establish diplomatic relations, which had been
broken off 15 years ago.
Ahmed, 42, a former army officer, became Ethiopia’s new prime minister
in March after his predecessor resigned amid widespread protests. Ahmed
has freed hundreds of political prisoners, and extended amnesty to those
charged with treason and other political crimes. At his request
parliament lifted the longstanding state of emergency there.
On Aug. 7 the Ethiopian government signed an agreement to end
hostilities with rebels from the Oromia region of the country, who have
been fighting for self-determination since the 1970s. Oromo is the
country’s largest ethnic group, comprising 34 percent of the population.
Ahmed is the first Oromo to become prime minister, defusing resentment
that for many years the government was controlled by Tigrayans, who make
up just 6 percent of the population.
Washington seeks to counter Beijing’s role in Ethiopia — as elsewhere in
Africa — where it has major investments and owns most of the country’s
massive debt. Ahmed has pledged to partly privatize state-owned
enterprises, including Ethiopian airlines, in a drive to increase ties
with Washington and other imperialist rulers in Europe.
U.S. rulers interests in Africa
The U.S. capitalist rulers have stepped up efforts to advance and
protect their investments and markets in Africa. In 2007 they
established the U.S. Africa Command, a military command dedicated to
operations across the continent. Washington maintains a sizable base in
Djibouti, which borders on Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia, and sits
directly across the straits from Yemen.
Ethiopia’s 105 million people make it the second most populous country
in Africa. More than 80 percent live in rural areas. A quarter of the
population lives in poverty, subsisting on less than $2 a day.
Eritrea, a country of 6 million people, was freed from Italian colonial
control in 1941, but ruled by the British for the next 10 years. In 1952
it was seized by Ethiopia’s rulers and forcibly annexed as a province 10
years later. This sparked a 30-year struggle for independence. Eritrean
rebel forces were victorious in 1991.
In 1998 fighting erupted again over disputed border areas near the small
town of Badme. The rulers in both countries massively increased their
armies, to some 300,000 each, including the imposition of the mandatory
conscription system in Eritrea. When the fighting ended two years later,
over 100,000 had been killed and a million driven from their homes.
The peace agreement established the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary
Commission, composed of Washington, the European Union, the African
Union and the U.N. The commission awarded the disputed territory around
Badme to Eritrea, but the Ethiopian government refused to accept this
decision and continued to occupy the area. In June 2018, Ethiopia’s
new prime minister announced that his government would now “fully accept
and implement” the border agreement.
Former rebel commander Afwerki has been in power since 1991. Parliament
has not convened since 2002. Mandatory “national service” conscription
has led some 5,000 Eritreans to flee the country every month, many
joining the massive wave of refugees from Africa and the Middle East
seeking passage to Europe. Nearly 170,000 Eritrean refugees also live in
Ethiopia.
“We grow up seeing every adult we know get out from their house, go to
national service and never come back,” Semhar Gebreselassie, a young
Eritrean asylum-seeker who fled the country in 2014, told Al Jazeera.
“We don’t want that to happen to us.”
The signing of the peace accord with Ethiopia is raising hopes among
working people in Eritrea that these conditions will be changing soon.
Following the agreement, Ethiopian Prime Minister Ahmed flew to
Washington, D.C., July 28, where he spoke to thousands of Ethiopians and
others. Some 300,000 Ethiopians live in the area.
Thousands of young cab and Uber drivers, airport, restaurant and
convenience store workers and others turned out. “This day is historic
for us,” Yibel Ashenafi, an electrician from Alexandria, Virginia, told
Ned Measel, Socialist Workers Party candidate for House of
Representatives from the District of Columbia, who came to talk with
workers attending the meeting. “The situation can be better now.”
“Big shifts are shaking the capitalist world order,” Measel said. “Our
job as workers is to understand them, and to use the political space
that is open for us to advance our class interests.”
Ashenafi subscribed to the Militant and got a copy of The Clintons’
Anti-Working-Class Record: Why Washington Fears Working People by SWP
National Secretary Jack Barnes.
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •Witch hunt by liberals against Trump a danger to
workers
•US, Turkish rulers clash over course in Mideast
•SWP: Speak out against bosses, gov't attacks, abuse
•White nationalist rally shows less support for racism in US today
•Join fight to end prison officials' censorship of the 'Militant'!
•Demand US rulers sign peace pact ending the Korean War!
Feature Articles •‘Teamster Bureaucracy’ is a must read for workers today
Also In This Issue •Working people welcome Eritrea-Ethiopia peace deal
On the Picket Line •Workers at Indiana construction site walk out
against racist firings
•Puerto Rico teachers protest ‘worst school start in decades’
•Teachers in New Zealand strike over pay, conditions
Books of the Month •Fidel Castro: ‘Maurice Bishop was a true revolutionary’
25, 50 and 75 years ago
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